Patent ID: 7509274

Claim:
A method of measuring and ranking investment management performance of individual investors amongst a large universe of investors in order to create investment products for other persons as customers to invest in, comprising the steps of: a) in a first phase, creating at least one personal portfolio comprising at least one financial instrument for each said individual investor participating in said performance ranking method, said universe of investors comprising on the order of greater than 1000 persons; b) assigning to each of said individual investor personal portfolios a preselected financial value as at least one of a personal portfolio investor Total Account Value and a Net Asset Value at a defined starting point in time; c) permitting said individual investors to personally select and individually trade said at least one financial instrument in each said personal portfolio through a trusted independent 3 rd party, said trades affecting said at least one investor Total Account Value and said Net Asset Value, and wherein i) said trusted third party is at least one of: i) a registered investment advisor, and ii) a registered broker/dealer; and ii) in at least a second phase, at least some of said participating individual investor's trades are real trades reported to said trusted 3 rd party as executed; d) tracking said personal portfolio of at least one investor Total Account Value and said Net Asset Value of each said investor by the trusted 3 rd party; e) said trusted 3 rd party periodically ranking the performance of at least some of said investor's personal portfolios by a computer-enabled system based on change in at least one of an investor Total Account Value and a Net Asset Value over a determined period of time as a metric for credibly determining individual best investors from among the universe of participating investors; and f) in a third phase, selecting at least one of the individual best investors, whose personal portfolios and real trades have been measured and ranked over time by a computer-enabled system, as a candidate professional fund manager to select financial instruments for inclusion in an investment product to be offered to other persons as customers as an investment opportunity.