Performance Attribution: Institutional Users Seek Solutions to Handle Multiple Asset Classes, Innovative Strategies. Complexities in the investing landscape pose new challenges to developers of performance attribution systems which asset managers use to understand exactly how their investment bets are paying off, and to help them communicate their strategies to shareholders and potential investors.

Industry Alert: Virt-x Capitalizes on MiFID With Advanced Platform. Virt-x, the London-based securities exchange owned by the SWX Swiss Exchange, is launching its new high-performance trading platform in part to contend with a new trading climate created by the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive.

Business Strategies: Firms Turning to ‘Hub-Shoring’ in Global Investment. The offshoring industry for financial services is moving toward specialization, according to a research report by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu’s Global Financial Services Industry Group, which surveyed 40 major investment firms on their offshoring practices.

Spotlight: P. Howard Edelstein, Chief Executive Officer, NYFIX Inc.

Investment Decision Support: Legend’s Neural Network Uses AI for Asset Allocation. For 10 years, Legend Advisory Corp. has been quietly applying artificial intelligence to asset allocation with AANN, its Asset Allocation Neural Network.

Risk Management: NICE Augments Analytical Solution With Actimize. Among transaction analytics solutions, know-your-customer requirements have not proven lucrative enough on their own, a key reason why NICE Systems Ltd. acquired transactional risk management software provider Actimize.

Clearance & Settlement: Guidelines Aim for Seamless European Interoperability. Europe’s three main securities markets trade associations have delivered access and interoperability guidelines for transactions between European Union countries as requested by the European Commission in 2006.