Managing Eagle Alpha's premium alternative data research and strategy offering and delivering tailored advisory, sourcing, and strategic assistance to investment management clients.
It depends on how many firms a given dataset has information on. Credit card transaction data has been known to provide a strong signal on revenues as many firms and many users are covered.
Eagle Alpha’s most recent events had 6 alternative data companies pitch to buyside firms in NYC (29 Sept 2016) and London (27 Sept 2016). Each provider gave an overview of their offerings, presented three case studies, and responded to Q&A. Summaries of presentations are presented below:
Most buyside firms typically start by nominating or recruiting an individual to champion their initial alternative data efforts. When a demonstrable return on investment is seen, firms then seek to expand the team.
OpenFDA was launched in June 2014 with the goal to make it easier for researchers and analysts to access and use data from FDA. The data is available for direct downloads and can be queried via APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).
Asset managers are challenged to grow and analyze the ever-increasing number of datasets.
Expert Networks were the last major change to the fundamental research process. There is mounting evidence that alternative data will be the next major change.
I've seen what appears to be an inflection in the last few weeks and months, so I'm not sure the question is apt. I think the biggest reason asset managers haven't taken advantage of alternative data has simply been the underperformance of the industry overall in the past 12-18 months.
Matthew Granade, Point72’s Chief Market Intelligence Officer, was interviewed by Business Insider on how his firm uses alternative data and approaches quantamental investing.
Quants and quantamental firms have been leveraging alternative data for years. Why haven’t more firms with fundamental strategies started alternative data pods / teams?
Consumer transaction data can be highly informative and, in certain cases, predictive. Bank of America Merrill Lynch uses its debit and credit card data to analyze the US economy and retail sales, in particular.
There has been an increasing momentum on the topic of alternative data. The Economist, Fast Company, HFM Week (attached) and Wall Street Journal have all recently published articles with an industry overview. Below are interesting datasets that were mentioned.
On the 29th of July, we published a research note on Fitbit highlighting the company’s success both in activity tracker and running watch categories. Two new products were launched in Q1 of 2016, the Blaze and the Alta, and gained significant market shares in Q2.
