Who owns the information, he owns the world. Said over 200 years ago by Nathan Rothschild, this phrase is still relevant today, especially for analysts of investment markets, for whom accurate and timely information is one of the most expensive ‘things.’ Sergey Kartashov (Sergejs Kartasovs), CEO of Cypriot asset management company Generation Partners, told us how to filter, quickly and competently, information flows in the modern world.
Big & fast data
About 30-40 years ago, it took quite a while for reliable economic news to reach the addressees. The only sources of reliable information were reputable newspapers and magazines. It could take a day, a week, or sometimes even a month for people to learn about the situation on stock exchanges and the state of a particular company offering opportunity for investment. In the past, it all depended on the speed of print and delivery. At the same time, information was often cut down and could become outdated even before going to print. Today, the situation is the other way around – there is too much “fast food” information, and its reliability has dropped significantly.
‘Today with just one post, any of the billions of Internet users can make a real boom in the investment market and raise or lower stock prices. Take Elon Musk’s tweet, after which Bitcoin instantly grew by 19%. When there is so much information around, the main task is to know what is really important,’ says Sergey Kartashov.
Finding the right landmarks, however, is only part of a smart approach. Even if you consider exclusively trustworthy sources, the information should nevertheless be carefully checked for reliability. The simplest example is using native ads by a great number of news and analytics platforms, even the reputable ones. Apart from that, some corporations descend to publishing outright lies or malicious rumors.
Dealing with an incredible volume and speed of information and filtering it out is one of the tasks that an asset management company does.
‘Analysts process thousands of sources, study all trends and global tendencies. Then, they check various data with official sources, study the preconditions of certain events, and draw an overall picture, providing the investor with an objective analysis,’ says Sergey Kartashov.
Expertise
Talking about selecting companies for investing, analysing publicly available information and the market is only the first of several steps. This is followed by conducting a personal audit of companies and building an investment basket.
‘At the expertise stage, there is carried out a comprehensive assessment of investment applicants. It includes a number of factors: the company’s location, its age, the experience of the company’s specialists, whether there is appropriate management and whether there are other investors interested in the applicants, the business plan, the vision of development for the next few years, and so on,’ says Sergey Kartashov.
Diversification
When the most optimal ones have been selected from a variety of proposals, it is time to choose the best ones. According to Sergey Kartashov, the most effective option is to diversify an investment portfolio.
‘In practice, we come across a lot of risky startups that promise to provide in return large interest rates in the nearest future. On the other hand, there are many stable companies that are safe to invest in, but the revenue from such investments is several times less. The task of analysts and asset management companies is to find an ideal risk-return-ratio for an investor’s portfolio,’ emphasized Sergey Kartashov.
Sergey Kartashov graduated from the University of Malta in 2005 with a degree in Science and Computer Engineering. He also studied in the Riga Business School. Kartashov has a Master’s degree in Business Administration (Full-time MBA) and more than ten years of experience in the banking sector with large corporate clients from England and Eastern Europe. For the last six years, Kartashov’s main activity has been asset management and evaluation of companies for investing. He focuses on startups that work with video technology and IT ecosystems, as well as on launching projects for pre-IPO and IPO.