Patents Assigned to Barra Inc.
  • Patent number: 7596523
    Abstract: The invention comprises a risk model and data, and is provided on a secure Web-based, interactive platform, whereby a user can build customized risk analyses and reports, covering multiple asset classes and markets. The invention also organizes and categorizes assets along dimensions best reflecting a user's investment process, determines risk assumed, determines sources of risk, allows viewing of a portfolio's risk exposures, identifies and quantifies sources of volatility, provides streamlined risk reporting, and provides a trade scenario utility.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 3, 2003
    Date of Patent: September 29, 2009
    Assignee: Barra, Inc.
    Inventors: William Sobel, Alex Aleskovski, Peter Hand, Zheng Liu, Michael Bishopp, Anton Honikman, Loren Anderson, Richard Close
  • Patent number: 7536329
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for developing a structural model of credit risk that incorporates the short-term uncertainty inherent in default events is disclosed. The model is based on the assumption of incomplete information, taking as premise that bond investors are not certain about the true level of a firm's value that may trigger default. In addition, the coherent integration of structure and uncertainty is facilitated with compensators. Compensators form the infrastructure of a class of credit models that is broad enough to include traditional structural models, intensity-based models, and a great deal more. Several empirical examples are provided that compare default probabilities and credit yield spreads forecast by the incomplete information model to the output of a Black and Cox (1976) model. It is found that the incomplete information model reacts more quickly and, unlike traditional structural models, forecasts positive short-term credit spreads for firms that are in distress.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 20, 2004
    Date of Patent: May 19, 2009
    Assignee: Barra, Inc.
    Inventors: Lisa Robin Goldberg, Kay Giesecke
  • Patent number: 7324978
    Abstract: An invention forcing an aggregate risk model to be consistent with standalone models is provided. A revising transformation parameterized over and an objective function minimized over, the orthogonal group are provided, least changing cross blocks of covariance matrices, preserving information in original cross block correlations, consistent with a prescribed revised sub-block.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 4, 2002
    Date of Patent: January 29, 2008
    Assignee: Barra, Inc.
    Inventors: Lisa Robin Goldberg, Alec Kercheval, Guy Miller
  • Patent number: 7024388
    Abstract: The invention provides a method and apparatus for combining two or more risk models to create a risk model with wider scope than its constituent parts. The method insures that the newly formed risk model is consistent with the component models from which it is formed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2001
    Date of Patent: April 4, 2006
    Assignee: Barra Inc.
    Inventors: Daniel Stefek, Lisa Robin Goldberg, Scott Steven Scheffler, Ken Chorlam Hui, Nicolas Goodrich Torre
  • Patent number: D469442
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 24, 2001
    Date of Patent: January 28, 2003
    Assignee: Barra, Inc.
    Inventors: Reiner David Bohlen, Jr., Joseph Anthony Lanza, Jeffrey Philip LaRoche