Meet in4m, An AI Tool That's Unlocking Access To Actionable Financial Market Insights

Benzinga, a leading news and data provider, will be holding its annual Benzinga Global Fintech Awards, a day of dealmaking, networking, and recognition in the financial technology space, on November 11, 2021.

The event will award Benzinga Listmakers, those top companies part of Benzinga’s Global Fintech Index, for their accomplishments innovating, as well as merging the best of finance and technology.

In recognition of those disruptive innovators creating positive and diverse change within the financial services space, Benzinga chatted with in4m co-founder Buck Andrews.

About in4m: Financial markets are becoming increasingly democratized. That’s due in part to the commission-free trading revolution and platforms like in4m, which equips traders with the same high-quality insights institutions act on day in, and day out.

After a successful career market making at the Chicago Board of Trade, developing the first Microsoft Windows app for real-time equity, options, and futures analytics at AT Financial, a firm sold to Thomson Financial, co-founding Omni-Quant, as well as spending time at design firms and hedge funds, Andrews took a step back, and did a top-down analysis of today’s financial markets.

According to Andrews, financial literacy and insights initiatives offered by typical retail solution providers are far off from what institutions look to incorporate into their investment methodologies.

His partner thought the same, and they set out to create an AI technology that scrapes stock market news for impactful insights. The technology does automatically what traders, under portfolio managers, typically do at hedge funds.

“We went to one or two hedge funds and talked to them about it,” he said. “My partner has his PhD in AI, and had been doing this work for a number of years -- he’s an adjunct professor at the University of Sydney, in artificial intelligence.”

In4m was successfully able to establish a proof of concept; the platform works by uploading data from sources like BBC, Bloomberg and Benzinga, among 40 others, into a cloud workspace. Thereafter, an AI sifts through the data, deriving an impact ranking.

“The product itself, on the backend, reads through thousands of articles every day. We use the AI to rank those articles based on whether it is relevant or impactful. Then, we try to apply direction to it.”

More On Product: in4m comes as a holistic market insights platform, allowing users to research and identify viable investment opportunities.

“We’re trying to use news as a way to educate, follow, and give people ideas on what they could be buying, and what they could be looking at -- to let them know: ‘Hey, my stock is down 3%, and this is why it’s down.’”

One of the most unique features offered is an impact rating, the result of a thorough AI analysis on a stock in question. If the rating is negative, users are warned that they should seek opportunity elsewhere. If positive, users ought to have confidence in their stock selection.

“We’re helping educate people that don’t have the background professionals do,” Andrews said in reference to providing users of popularized platforms like Robinhood an opportunity to enhance their returns. “I think we appeal to a wide range of people from the Robinhoods of the world, all the way up to professionals.”

For now, Andrews added, prospective users can access the platform for free, and view the impact of offering, M&A, company reporting, broker rating, insider activity, and general news articles, for a limited group of stocks.

“Eventually, the way we plan on charging for the platform is that we will give you a certain number of stocks for free, and if you exceed those 10 stocks, then you have to start paying a monthly fee.”

Though not set in stone, Andrews expects the monthly rate to run up to $30.

Innovation Outlook: “It’s an iterative process,” Andrews said in a statement on insight accuracy.

“The AI improves the more it learns. We’re constantly releasing new versions.”

Going forward, in4m is looking to grow the depth and breadth of the data it analyzes. Additionally, the firm is pursuing multiple avenues to grow platform exposure.

“We think we got a product that is very useful as a productivity tool, for the professional investor,” Andrews ended. “We’re going to close that knowledge gap.”

To learn more about in4m, click here.

Photo by LinkedIn, from Pexels.