Using commercial share of wallet to rate investments

• US 7,991,677 B2
• Filed: 10/21/2010
• Issued: 08/02/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (American Express Company)
• Original Assignee: American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (American Express Company)
• Inventors: Turner, Geraldine A., Lyon, Charles Christopher, Haggerty, Kathleen, Yuan, Chao M., Biswas, Arnab, Ruterman, Jon Kevin, Phelan, Robert E., Okoh, Benedict O.
• Primary Examiner(s): CHEUNG, MARY DA ZHI WANG
• Application Number:
  US12/909,645
• Publication Number:
  US 20110035333A1
• Time in Patent Office: 285 Days
• Field of Search: 705 35- 37, 705 39- 42, 707/609, 707705-706, 902/41
• US Class Current: 705/36.00R
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/06 Asset management; Financial planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance

Abstract

Commercial size of spending wallet (“CSoSW”) is the total business spend of a business including cash but excluding bartered items. Commercial share of wallet (“CSoW”) is the portion of the spending wallet that is captured by a particular financial company. A modeling approach utilizes various data sources to provide outputs that describe a company'"'"'s spend capacity. A mutual fund rating company can use this CSoW/CSoSW modeling approach to predict the performance of funds that invest in a particular industry or sector. In addition, since mutual funds often provide guidelines for selecting stocks, rating companies can use this modeling approach to predict the performance of companies in a fund'"'"'s portfolio.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

modeling, by a computer-based system for rating an investment fund comprising a processor and a tangible and non-transitory memory, industry spending patterns using individual corporate data and aggregate corporate data, including financial statement data;

estimating, by the computer-based system, a commercial size of spending wallet for a plurality of companies in which the investment fund has likely invested, wherein the estimating is based on known financial statement data of each company in the plurality of companies, total known business spending of each company in the plurality of companies, and the model of industry spending patterns, wherein the commercial size of spending wallet is the total business spending of the plurality of companies that can be transacted a transaction account, and wherein the model of industry spending patterns is used to infer financial statement data and spending data that is not known; and

generating, by the computer-based system, a quality rating for the investment fund comprising the commercial size of spending wallet of the plurality of companies and an investment fund rating.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the investment fund is an industry-specific fund.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the investment fund invests in companies from at least two industries.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a buy instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of the company.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a sell instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of the company.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a sell instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of a customer of the company.

7. A computer-based system comprising:

a processor; and

a tangible, non-transitory memory in communication with the processor for storing a plurality of instructions for directing the processor to;

model, by the processor, industry spending patterns using individual corporate data and aggregate corporate data, including financial statement data;

estimate, by the processor, a commercial size of spending wallet for a plurality of companies in which an investment fund has likely invested, wherein the estimate is based on known financial statement data of each company in the plurality of companies, total known business spending of each company in the plurality of companies, and the model of industry spending patterns, wherein the commercial size of spending wallet is the total business spending of the plurality of companies that can be transacted using a transaction account, and wherein the model of industry spending patterns is used to infer financial statement data and spending data that is not known; and

provide, by the processor, a quality rating for the investment fund comprising the commercial size of spending wallet of the plurality of companies and an investment fund rating.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the investment fund invests in companies from multiple industries.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the investment fund is an industry-specific fund.

10. The system of claim 7, further comprising generating a buy instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of the company.

11. The system of claim 7, further comprising generating a sell instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of the company.

12. The system of claim 7, further comprising generating a sell instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of a customer of the company.

13. An article of manufacture including a computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

modeling, by the computing device, industry spending patterns using individual corporate data and aggregate corporate data, including financial statement data;

estimating, by the computing device, a commercial size of spending wallet for a plurality of companies in which the investment fund has likely invested, wherein the estimating is based on known financial statement data of each company in the plurality of companies, total known business spending of each company in the plurality of companies, and the model of industry spending patterns, wherein the commercial size of spending wallet is the total business spending of the plurality of companies that can be transacted using a transaction account, and wherein the model of industry spending patterns is used to infer financial statement data and spending data that is not known; and

generating, by the computing device, a quality rating for the investment fund comprising the commercial size of spending wallet of the plurality of companies and an investment fund rating.

14. The article of claim 13, wherein the investment fund invests in companies from multiple industries.

15. The article of claim 13, wherein the investment fund is an industry-specific fund.

16. The article of claim 13, further comprising generating a buy instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of the company.

17. The article of claim 13, further comprising generating a sell instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of the company.

18. The article of claim 13, further comprising generating a sell instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of a customer of the company.