Microsoft helps launch financial alert service

A Dublin company introduced a financial alerts service based on emerging data-crunching technology from Microsoft on Wednesday.

Zignals is opening a beta of a new service that lets users set parameters about stock performance and receive text messages or e-mail when the parameters are met. The free service is designed for “someone who is active about managing their own portfolio of investments but not obsessed. We’re talking about people who actively manage their investments but who have day jobs,” said Pat Brazel, CEO of the new company.

Microsoft is taking a 15 percent stake in Zignals and has two seats on the board.

Zignals has an exclusive license to use new technology developed at Microsoft Research, until Microsoft formally launches a new group around the product in about a year. The Solver Foundation team, to be based in Redmond, Wash., will develop and market the new technology, which can be used to process very large amounts of data very quickly, said David Harnett, senior director of IP Ventures at Microsoft.

“It can be used in very high-end problem-solving applications like you’d see in trading for financial services, in logistics for optimizing routes and for inventory management,” Harnett said.

Microsoft also helped develop some of the applications that run on top of the technology that Zignals uses to offer its service. Those applications will remain exclusive to Zignals.

Zignals combines available raw data, sifting through and analyzing it in a way that might look familiar to someone who works at a major broker, to deliver the alerts. “We’re democratizing access to these services,” Brazel said.

“We’re not talking simple information you can get from Yahoo Finance,” he said. “Rather we’re talking about strategic events where an investor might be interested in taking a position in a stock if a fairly complex set of events come to pass.” For example, a user could sign up to receive an alert when insiders begin buying a certain stock at the same time that the dividend yield is being increased, he said.

Most mobile operators offer text alert services that include stock information, although they are usually limited to alerts about fluctuations in stock prices. Zignals aims to offer more detailed information.

The Zignals Web site will also feature a community where users can discuss and share ideas. The beta service is available in the United States and Europe.

The service will be free for end-users, who will end up paying for alerts if they receive them via text message on mobile phones. The site doesn’t feature any advertising, and Zignals is still working out ways to earn revenue. It may end up offering premium services for a subscription.

In addition, Brazel thinks that brokerages might be interested in sponsoring services. Since Zignals doesn’t actually handle any transactions, it is in a sense referring business to the brokers. That means the brokers might find Zignals alerts valuable and be willing to sponsor them through advertisements in the alerts, he said.