FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some of the most commonly asked questions about the ProRapidReview tool. If you have additional questions you would like to know the answers to, we would love to hear from you at support@decisionengines.tech.

The Free Version of the ProRapidReview Checkup tool is a fully functional, working version of the ProRapidReview with only one limitation – it does not show the names of the mutual funds and ETFs. You can initially use it to see how your mutual funds and ETFs, and/or those that you are recommending to your clients, compare to other possible choices within their respective asset classes. In other words, you can freely use it, without cost, to determine your need for the full version of the ProRapidReview that provides both the names and ticker symbols of all of the choices. Unlike comparing performance to a benchmark index, you’ll be able to see how your choices perform in comparison to those with the absolute best composite performance - using the factors and weightings which you select based on your investment objectives. You’ll likely be shocked at the size of the long-term performance premiums of the top ranked funds (in comparison to both yours and the index benchmarks), often with less volatility (i.e., with no equivalent “risk premium”), and frequently at the same or lesser cost. Consequently, the Checkup tool is often used for new client recruitment by showing a prospective client that moving to an advisor who can help optimize their investment choices through use of the ProRapidReview technology, you can increase their chances of better investment results, likely dramatically. The ProRapidReview was originally designed exactly for that purpose – to recruit clients away from your competition and to prevent clients from being recruited away from you. Try it and you’ll understand.

The ProRapidReview Tool is a web-based application for rapidly comparing the overall performance of specific mutual funds and ETFs against all other available choices, in a way never before possible. The paid subscription version provides you with full functionality and the full names and ticker symbols of the investments you research.

The ProRapidReview tool is designed for use by investment advisors, financial planners, CPAs, attorneys, investment committees, and securities brokers who are interested in answering this key investment selection question: “Of all the available choices, which ones are best for my client(s)?”

The principal use of the ProRapidReview is the comparative evaluation of investment choices to identify those that have been best at producing the desired, composite investment performance over time.

How much is your time worth to you, and would it be better spent recruiting, meeting with, and advising clients or struggling to identify superior investment choices and do due diligence on them? The ProRapidReview will not only significantly improve your chances of identifying superior investment choices, it will dramatically reduce the time and increase the efficiency of your selection and due diligence tasks. It will also help to improve investment performance, client satisfaction and referrals, and your competitive position. In an investment advisory marketplace in which everyone appears to be doing the same things in largely the same ways, the ProRapidReview will make you not just better but meaningfully and beneficially different.

Yes, we’ve received both U.S. and foreign patents on this unique technology.

The ProRapidReview enables you to pick a significant number of performance parameters, hierarchically arrange and weight them, in order to profile the ideal investment effect you are looking for within any covered asset class. Using that composite blend of weighted performance factors, you can score and rank literally hundreds of choices in a manner specific to your individual needs, goals and preferences (and those of your clients). In other words, you will be able to objectively and transparently identify which mutual funds and ETFs have been the best at producing the composite investment results you are seeking over time.

After logging in: you enter in the name, ticker symbol, or asset class (e.g., large cap growth) that you are interested in comparatively evaluating. What will appear is the relevant asset class. Click on it and then click the gearbox (on its upper right hand corner. A default table will appear with the following: A 50% weight on Return, with a sub-listing or 1, 3, and 5 year average annual returns. A 50% weight on Risk, , with a sub-listing or 1, 3, and 5 year average annual standard deviation (i.e., volatility). 0% weight on Misc. Factors. These weightings can be adjusted by using the slider. Additional factors can be added and the weights of those individual factors can be adjusted by clicking into the “Factors” section at the top left of the table. Adjusting the factors and their weightings will produce a composite score (at the far left of the table) and that score ranks the choices from highest to lowest (the resulting numerical rank being shown on the right side of the table). The highest scoring and ranking choices will be those that have proven best over time at producing the composite investment effect profiled by the factor choices and weightings you’ve selected. 7. Clicking into the “Chart” section (at the upper right corner of the table) will bring up a distribution of the choices with scores (y-axis) plotted against the numeric rank (x-axis). In most cases this will show an elongated, relatively flat formation, which we refer to as the slope of mediocrity. The much stepper and smaller slope at the far left, is the slope of exceptional performance. The chart illustrates that there are typically relatively few superior performers and helps to explain the difficulty in identifying and selecting them with out a tool like our ProRapidReview

Lots, and there’s a very important reason why. How much time are you currently spending in investment selection and ongoing performance monitoring? Weeks? Months? And, how do you do it? For instance, how do you select from the over 600 mutual funds that fall within the “large cap growth” classification? With the ProRapidReview, here’s how you will be able to do it. Within mere minutes, you will be able to score and rank all 600+ using the weighted blend of performance parameters you select, and then you can focus your qualitative due diligence on only the top 3-5. How much time would that save you, and how much is that time worth (especially if you could reallocate it to revenue producing activities)?

Better results. Why? Because, by using the ProRapidReview, you will be making better informed decisions. Logically, better information leads to better decisions which lead to better results.

ProRapidReview can help you increase AUM in two major ways: 1. By improving investment performance. It is not uncommon for the PRRT to reveal performance differences between and existing choice and the PRRT revealed top ranked choice of 400, 600, 800 bps or more, often with less volatility and other risk and/or cost-related metrics. If the overall investment performance of your clients portfolios was to increase by only 2%, on investable assets of $250 million, that additional $5 million, at a 1% advisory fee would equal $50,000. 2. By attracting more clients. Earlier versions of the PRRT were created to help recruit investment clients away from competitors. For example, imagine meeting with prospective clients and asking them “in what funds does your guy have you in?” And then, loading that into the PRRT, you show them the often quite large performance gaps between what they are in and what they could be in, with your help. And you can do this with everything in their portfolios. The result will often illustrate that they’ve left a very large amount of potential returns “on the table.” The closing question can be this – “Do you want to stay with your guy or come over to us, where we’ll use this technology to better keep your investments optimized?” Do you think that most will turn you down?

There are 48 individual quantitative factors which can be included in your weighted scoring of investments. These include: YTD Return, 3-Month Return, 1 Year Return, 3 Year Return, 5 Year Return, 10 Year Return, 15 Year Return, 20 Year Return, Yield 12-Month, 2020 Return, 2019 Return, 2018 Return, 2017 Return, 2016 Return, 2015 Return, 2014 Return, 2013 Return, 2012 Return, 2011 Return, 2010 Return, 2009 Return, 2008 Return, 1 Year ASD, 3 Year ASD, 5 Year ASD, 10 Year ASD, 15 Year ASD, 20 Year ASD, 1 Year Sortino, 3 Year Sortino, 5 Year Sortino, 10 Year Sortino, Downside Dev 1Yr, Downside Dev 3Yr, Downside Dev 5Yr, Downside Dev 10Yr, 12b-1 Fees, Alpha 3-Year, A.U.M., Expense Ratio, Focus, Manager Tenure, Sharpe 1-Year, Sharpe 3-Year, Sharpe 5-Year, Sharpe 10-Year, Treynor 3-Year, Turnover Rate

No. While the underlying performance data on mutual funds and ETFs exists and can be downloaded and manipulated, to the best of our knowledge there are no tools available that can comparatively evaluate mutual fund and ETF choices as rapidly and efficiently as the ProRapidReview. What might take you days and possibly even weeks to do, the ProRapidReview can perform in mere moments. How much is your time worth to you and should it best be spent to grow your practice and increase your revenue?

As you will see from your use of the tool, most active mutual funds are only “average” in their performance. There are a relatively small number that consistently outperform passive index funds and ETFs over time. Consequently, it’s not surprising that so many investment advisors now recommend only passive choices. After all, there’s no way to underperform an index in which you are invested. But there are some that do. The problem is that, with existing tools, it has been very hard (if not practically impossible) to identify them. This highlights unique value of the ProRapidReview. It was created specifically to objectively identify the best performing (highest scoring and ranking) mutual funds and ETFs within each asset class.

Not at this time.

Not exactly, because (as you know) past performance is no guarantee of future results. However, what we have found (from over a decade of testing and practical use in advising real clients and their money) is that choices lying within the top 1-2% (and not the top decile or quartile) appear to have a higher degree of positive correlation between past and future performance. They tend to remain “good” longer. Moreover, the periodic use of the ProRapidReview reveals something that we believe no other methodology is capable of – providing an answer to this key performance monitoring question: “How did our choice do versus all of the other choices we could have selected?” If your mutual fund or ETF starts to decline in ranking, you will now get to see which ones are moving up – all within the same asset class, with the same investment goals, and in the same market conditions. This will help you and your clients avoid one of the principal cause of chronic underperformance: holding poor performing choices for far too long.

Yes, it should, within every covered asset class.

The SEC’s Reg. BI significant focuses on conflicts of interest as does the Form CRS distribution to clients that it mandates. By effectively filtering out all conflicts of interest, both known and unknowable, the PRRT helps to ensure your compliance not just with Reg. BI, but also with virtually all of the evolving “best interests” rules being considered and enacted at both the state and federal levels.

In it’s present form, the ProRapidReview is only now being introduced and made available to all investment advisors. However, the patented decision-assistance technology which powers it has been tested, refined, and in use within the investment advisory marketplace for well over a decade. The technology has been the key differentiator in advising over several billion dollars of investment assets, both institutional and individual, over that period of time.

While the number of current users is confidential, we can tell you that the patented decision-assistance technology was originally developed within an RIA firm, in which it has tested and refined it for over a decade. The technology has been the key differentiator in advising over several billion dollars of investment assets, both institutional and individual, over that period of time.

Although such a calculation will depend on a number of factors specific to you, the nature of your practice, and your business goals, it could be quite significant. Here are several things to consider: What’s your time worth and how much revenue could you generate if you were able to devote more time to new client recruitment? The improved competitive position and greater ability to recruit clients that the ProRapidReview provides can more than pay off with one or two new clients. At a 1% investment advisory fee, the recruitment of one or more clients with invest-able assets totaling just $3 million, will result in $30,000 of new revenue. The ProRapidReview should help you do much better than that. How much will the ProRapidReview improve the overall investment return of the total amount of your AUM. It is not uncommon to see performance gaps of over 600 – 800+ bps in many equity asset classes. If, by use of the ProRapidReview, you can increase the investment performance of the total amount of your AUM by (for example) just 2%, then for every $250 million of AUM, the amount of additional, performance-related growth would be $5 million, with $50,000 of additional revenue.

No. The ProRapidReview Tool is a completely independent technology with no marketing relationships or associations. In fact, by transparently using pure performance factors to score and rank mutual fund and ETF choices, the ProRapidReview effectively “filters out” all conflicts of interest, both known and unknowable. This is a fact that you should make known to your clients, since it will increase client trust and confidence in you and your recommendations by eliminating the fear that many have – that, because of possible incentive compensation arrangements, recommendations may not be in their best interests (i.e., that they be better for those recommending than for them).

No, The ProRapidReview Tool and the company that created it, Decision Technologies Corporation, are not Broker/Dealers nor are associated with a Broker/Dealer.

It doesn’t. The ProRapidReview uses the oldest reported share class. Trying to include all of the share classes would “clog up” the resulting scoring and ranking with so many versions of the same funds as to make the ProRapidReview impractical to use. So, at present, there is no practical way to screen out or select specific share classes in the ProRapidReview tool. The evaluation of individual share classes should be a part of the necessary, qualitative due diligence “next step” after the identification of the mutual funds / ETFs you are most interested in, through the scoring ranking with the ProRRT. However, there is a much more powerful platform – our “legacy” platform – that does have that capability and much more. At present, that legacy platform is available only through Trustee Empowerment & Protection, Inc.’s (TEPI) “PowerAnalyst” program. Through that program, TEPI serves as an outsourced member of your firm’s investment staff, operating that platform for both investment selection and ongoing performance monitoring for your team. If you are interested in learning more about this option, please email suppport@decisionengines.tech.

We update the performance data in the ProRapidReview with the final performance numbers at the end of each calendar month. It could be done more often – for instance, it could be updated daily – but we have elected not to do so. Why? It’s because investment advice and performance reporting are typically done on a quarterly basis, and the hiring of professional management teams (which is, in essence what is being done when one invests in a mutual fund or ETF) is not for short-term performance. Mutual funds and ETFs are, unlike individual stocks, not suitable for day-trading.

No. The ProRapidReview Tool is a web-based application so all you need to do is log in through your internet browser.

You can use it on any device with a screen and internet access, however, the large number of factors that can be and often are used makes the use of devices with larger screens (e.g., laptops) more convenient.

Through our Support page, you have access to both written and video instructions and explanations of how to use the ProRapidReview and the various performance factors and features available within it. You can also contact us through email or by phone.

No, not at this time as no data is stored while you use the ProRapidReview. Reporting may be developed in the future as the needs of our subscribers evolve.

At present there is no storage of information from your use of the ProRapidReview. In other words, you cannot “save” the results of your use of the ProRapidReview within the current version. When you close out a session, everything is erased. Each time you log in, you will start with a fresh, new blank slate. DTC may track the usage of the ProRapidReview in order to improve it and provide additional help with its use.

No, you have unlimited use of the ProRapidReview Tool.

No. The license is for use by a single user. While the results of your use of the ProRapidReview can be shared with others in your firm and can be used to create a pool of approved investment choices from with investment advisors within your firm can recommend, each license is to an individual user and not to a firm or company as a whole. Allowing others to use your login credentials will lead to a cancellation of your license to use the ProRapidReview. However, if your firm would like to make the tool available to a large number of users, for both sales producers and analysts, feel free to contact us for enterprise pricing plans.

The Free Version of the ProRapidReview Checkup tool is available on the Subscribe page. Paid subscriptions can be accessed from the membership page within your Checkup subscription.

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