Data Warehousing for Investment Management: IBOR, Performance, and Research Data

An asset manager builds a data warehouse and the investment teams don't trust it. The reasons are familiar: positions in the warehouse don't quite match the IBOR because corporate actions were processed differently, performance numbers don't match GIPS composites because the methodology differs, and historical data has been restated in ways that make backtests show different results than they should. The warehouse is technically correct against the source extracts and functionally wrong against the official record. By month three, the research team is back to pulling data directly from the OMS and the operations team is reconciling manually.

Investment warehousing done right makes IBOR reconciliation and point-in-time correctness the foundations. Position and transaction data sourced from the IBOR after every cycle, with reconciliation that proves the warehouse matches. Corporate actions processed using the same methodology as the IBOR. Performance calculated using the GIPS methodology where composites apply. Bitemporal tables that preserve point-in-time accuracy for research. Master security data with vendor identifier mapping. With these foundations, the warehouse becomes the trusted source for trading, research, and reporting. Without them, it stays a parallel reality.