SD-02.1 — Investment Idea Generation

Business Domain: BD-02 Securities Research & Selection (Front office) · Applies: PUB

Purpose

Originates public-markets investment ideas and narrows the investable universe to the set of candidates worth deep research. Idea generation is the front of the research-and-selection chain: it turns the whole tradeable market into a managed pipeline of candidates, by systematic screening and by the less systematic channels — themes, news, management contact — that surface ideas a screen would miss. For the hedge-fund substyles whose unit of an idea is not a single security but a strategy view — a global-macro regime call, an event-driven situation around a corporate action, an arbitrage relationship — SD-02.1 also originates the strategy-level idea: the macro thesis or event/catalyst situation the long-short, macro and event-driven substyles trade on. The output remains a candidate, not a position: SD-02.1 produces candidates; it does not research them in depth (that is SD-02.2 to SD-02.4 and SD-02.6) or select and recommend them (SD-02.5).

Service Operations

Define and maintain the investable universe — the strategic universe of securities a strategy may consider, bounded by its mandate.
Run quantitative screens — filter the universe on value, quality, growth, momentum and balance-sheet criteria to a tractable research set.
Source non-screen ideas — originate ideas from the channels a screen cannot reach: thematic and top-down themes, financial news, management meetings, conferences, past holdings.
Generate hedge-fund strategy ideas — for the long-short, global-macro and event-driven substyles, originate the strategy-level idea the substyle trades on: a macro regime view (rates, currencies, sovereign credit, commodities), an event or catalyst situation (M&A, restructuring, index changes, regulatory triggers), or an arbitrage relationship. The strategy-level idea names the trade structure and the securities it expresses through; security-level deep research on those expressions runs in SD-02.2 / SD-02.3 / SD-02.4 and the live thesis in SD-02.6.
Capture and log ideas — record every raw idea, screened or originated, with its source, into the idea pipeline.
Triage and prioritise — rank logged ideas for depth of research, and promote the strongest into the research set.

Inputs and outputs

Inputs: market and fundamental data; screening tools; the strategy mandate and its constraints; the house view and thematic research from SD-01.3.
Outputs: the research set and the idea pipeline — consumed by SD-02.2, SD-02.3, SD-02.4 (which research the candidates) and SD-02.6 (which, for the hedge-fund substyles, maintains the strategy-level idea as the live strategy-level thesis), logged in the research record maintained by SD-02.7.

Entities

Consumes: Instrument / Asset (E-02) and the public-markets specialisations Listed Equity (PB-01) and Debt Instrument (PB-02); Legal Entity (E-01) for issuers; Asset Class (E-09); Price & Market Data (E-08); the SD-01.3 house view and thematic research.
Owns: none — the idea pipeline is an analytical artefact, recorded in the research record (SD-02.7).

Standards

No external standard governs idea generation. Quantitative-screening methodology is the named discipline; the idea-pipeline log is a research-management practice (SD-02.7).

Open extensions

Whether the idea pipeline warrants a record structure for the acted-versus-unacted-idea accountability SD-02.7 tracks.
The seam with SD-01.3 — thematic ideas consume the house view; they do not originate it.