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Active investors: A golden opportunity for wealth managers

Charles Smith
Charles Smith
Head of Digital Solutions for Wealth, Refinitiv

How can the wealth management industry monetise the growing market segment of active investors?


  1. Wealth firms are facing a host of new and developing industry challenges but there are also opportunities, such as the growth of active investors.
  2. Active investors are non-professional investors who engage in frequent trades on a daily basis and are typically highly sophisticated and digitally savvy. There are key opportunities for wealth firms to monetise active investors.
  3. To capture the attention of active investors, Refinitiv’s market data and trading platform, Refinitiv Active Investor, delivers accurate and timely news, advanced analytics, alternative data, insights and more.

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The wealth industry finds itself in uncharted waters.

Not only has COVID-19 delivered global uncertainty and market volatility in almost equal measure, but hastily implemented digital alternatives to client engagement, vast inter-generational wealth transfer, and relentless fee pressure have all coalesced to create a new normal that few could have envisaged even a decade ago.

Against this backdrop, wealth firms will almost certainly find themselves facing unprecedented challenges but should also remain cognisant of the substantial opportunities that exist.

Refinitiv Active Investor is a scalable market data and trading platform, offering a truly integrated experience for active investors who rely on detailed, accurate and timely information and insights

Uncertainty brings opportunity

One such opportunity lies with an increasingly important market segment, the active investor.

Active investors are non-professional investors who are adept at exploiting short-term price fluctuations, engage in frequent trades on a daily basis, and are typically highly sophisticated and digitally savvy.

Refinitiv research suggests that the pandemic spurred increased trading activity. Our recent report, Redefining investor data needs, reveals that 44 percent of active millennial investors accelerated their trading frequency during the volatility in financial markets as a result of COVID-19.

44 percent of active millennial investors accelerated their trading frequency during the volatility in financial markets as a result of COVID-19. Active investors: A golden opportunity for wealth managers

This burgeoning activity has positioned the active investor as an attractive and potentially lucrative segment, and one which forward-thinking wealth managers should not ignore.

The rise of the active investor

The wealth industry has seen significant growth in the self-directed market over the last few years.

This growth has been driven in part by the ongoing data revolution, which has ensured that ever-growing quantities of data are available to investors on a 24/7/365 basis, and has resulted in a new generation of active investors.

As a growing market segment, the active investor presents a golden opportunity for wealth managers to develop additional revenue streams – welcome news, given that the industry is steadily moving towards commission-free trading.

Wealth managers consequently need to innovate with some urgency, and several opportunities to monetise the active investor exist.

Key opportunities for wealth firms to monetise active investors

There are now clear opportunities for wealth firms to invest in meeting the specific needs of active investors; to explore ways to curate an engaging experience that delivers value added insights, analytics, charting and more; and to support active investors as they manage their trades and maximise their wealth.

Watch – Refinitiv Perspectives LIVE: Catering to the Self-Directed Investor Experience

Meeting the needs of active investors

To capture the attention of active investors, firms need to appeal to this market segment by offering leading-edge, innovative tools that can facilitate optimal analysis and trading.

Some examples of capabilities that these investors typically require include:

  • The ability to manage multiple trades and positions
  • Seamless access to breaking news, events and corporate actions
  • The timely delivery of fundamental and technical metrics that can be used to support and inform accurate asset valuations
  • Access to specialised content such as environmental, social and governance (ESG) data, news analytics and options data

Refinitiv’s market data and trading platform Active Investor has been designed around the specific needs of the active investor.

The platform supports most asset classes and security types, meets a wide range of local language requirements and offers a full set of option analysis and option trading tools.

The launch of Active Investor expands the toolset for wealth firms looking to connect with self-directed clients in a powerful and personal way

Fully scalable, the platform delivers accurate and timely news, commentary and insights. Users can access leading valuation content and advanced analytics, alternative data, pricing and reference data, and more.

Above all, Active Investor is client-centric by nature and appeals directly to individual investors, while allowing wealth managers to customise the look and feel they present and therefore to optimise brand identity.

Refinitiv Active Investor Customizable Platform
Refinitiv Active Investor Customizable Platform

Amidst ongoing and substantial change within the wealth management industry, wealth firms need to increase their revenue-generating potential.

Cementing the loyalty of a growing segment of investors is an opportunity that deserves attention, and those firms able to confidently step into the gap and cater to the specific needs of the active non-professional investor will be best placed to benefit from the additional and highly lucrative revenue streams on offer.

Refinitiv Active Investor is a scalable market data and trading platform, offering a truly integrated experience for active investors who rely on detailed, accurate and timely information and insights