Searching and Screening Funds
VizWealth gives you two complementary tools for finding funds: a keyword search to filter the universe by name or category, and a Top Funds screen that surfaces the strongest candidates within any subset. You can use them independently or together.
Keyword Search
There are two ways to start a keyword search:
- Shortcut: Type
?followed by your keywords from anywhere in the application. - Navigation: Go to the home screen and select Search Funds.
Both routes take you to the same search interface. Enter a keyword such as "real estate" and VizWealth returns two things: all categories whose names match the keyword, and all funds that contain those words in their name or description. From there you can narrow down to a specific category or work with the full result set.
Sorting and Filtering
Once you have a set of results, you can sort by Sharpe ratio or Gupta Spot (see below) to bring the strongest performers to the top.
You can also remove categories you do not want. For example, if you are screening for bond funds but want to exclude short-term options, deselect the short-term bond and alternative categories from the results. The remaining list will contain only the bond categories you care about, ready to sort and review.
Top Funds
The Top Funds feature screens the entire fund universe — currently around 8,600 funds across 115 categories in the Merrill Lynch universe — and identifies the three to six best funds in each category. Enable it with the Enable toggle on the search screen.
Top Funds is useful as a starting point when you do not have a specific fund in mind. Rather than reviewing hundreds of funds in a category, you get a short list of high-quality candidates for each one.
The Gupta Spot Ranking
Top Funds uses two ranking signals and combines them to produce its final list.
Three-year Sharpe ratio measures risk-adjusted performance over the past three years: return relative to volatility over a sustained period.
Gupta Spot (G-Spot) is a newer ranking that focuses on more recent momentum. It takes the fund's performance over the last 18 months and divides it by a measure of risk. The risk measure is the largest drawdown over that period; currently, standard deviation is used as a proxy while the full drawdown calculation is being finalized. You will be able to configure the parameters as the feature matures.
For each category, VizWealth selects the top three funds by Sharpe ratio and the top three by Gupta Spot, removes any duplicates, and returns a final list of three to six funds. This gives you candidates that perform well both over a longer horizon and in recent conditions.
Combining Search with Top Funds
You can apply Top Funds to any filtered subset, not just the full universe. Search for a keyword first — for example, "real estate" — to narrow the results to relevant categories and funds. Then enable Top Funds, and VizWealth will find the three to six strongest funds within that filtered set rather than across all 8,600.
This combination lets you move quickly from a broad interest (a sector, asset class, or keyword) to a curated short list, which you can then sort by Sharpe ratio or Gupta Spot, click through to individual fund charts, and compare side by side.