Low-Cost Bloomberg Alternative Ortex Global Equity Analytics Targets Institutions, Retail Traders: 'More User Friendly, Educational'

Ortex Global Equity Analytics, a research and analysis platform for global assets, recently expanded access beyond institutions to include retail traders.

The firm’s co-founder and CTO Peter Hillerberg spoke with Benzinga regarding his firm's intention to penetrate the institutional and retail U.S. market with a low-cost, actionable research and analysis solution.

Why Ortex?

Hillerberg comes from a high-frequency trading background.

“I wanted a new challenge — we thought there was a gap in the market to provide a lot of unique data.”

Hillerberg said his experience working for Quantlab (U.K.) Limited and Carnegie Investment Bank taught him that there was a need for low-cost, actionable data insights.

The effort started with a focus on finding high-quality data providers, the exec said.

"When you talk to institutional people, the first thing they say is, ‘yeah, I have Bloomberg, but their data isn't always right. I only have it for the chat.’”

Ortex's core products include:

• Live events calendar and news.
• Analyst recommendations.
• Real-time short interest.
• Insider activity and holdings.
• Trading signals.
• Charts, quotes, market depth and volume.
• Fundamental, valuation and yield analysis.

Ortex's Insights 

“From early on, we had global short interest data, which is still one of the most sought after data points on the system,” Hillerberg said.

He told Benzinga that Ortex’s over 500 institutional users primarily use short interest, correlation and the Alpha Signal trading insights.

“Our highly rated signals have over an 18% return. Applying these signals into a simple trading model, without stop losses, we get a return of about 307% since 2014.”

Ortex's calendars are another hit, Hillerberg said: users, among other things, have access to data regarding company roadshows and traffic figures for airlines.

“We have statistics including the frequency of roadshows, and being able to see if [companies] normally trade better around their roadshow.”

News on the platform is aggregated by Newscycle, which leverages a machine learning model to identify whether a news item has any bearing on price.

Platform Cost

"We are so much cheaper than Bloomberg," Hillerberg said.

Ortex's institutional offering is about $300 per month, while the retail offering costs $149 per month. 

Next Steps For Ortex 

“We are a young company, so we always strive to get better,” the CTO told Benzinga.

Ortex's long-term aim is to increase the availability of data on the platform, in addition to possibly adding features like built-in trading, he said. 

“That’s something we would consider implementing, but only if we find a good partnership with a trading platform.”

Ortex's primary focus at this moment is the expansion of the platform’s analytical and machine learning capabilities, Hillerberg said.

To learn more about Ortex, visit ortex.com.

Courtesy photo of the Ortex equity analytics dashboard.