A recent survey of 80 hedge funds by AIMA found that almost 40% of respondents are already engaging in responsible investing practices. However, data quality issues appear to be the biggest barrier to increasing such initiatives. For quants, these data limitations have made building systematic strategies particularly challenging. At Neudata, we see evidence of this changing as a result of alternative data addressing the many quality-related shortfalls plaguing the industry.

Our roundup of some of the most interesting alternative data provider updates over the past month. Examples include: a procurement data provider signs up a NY-based quant fund, a clickstream data provider receives its fair share of negative press and an e-receipt data provider reveals their panel has dropped by 75%.

We highlight key findings from a commodity alternative data provider's recent backtest on their US corn production forecasts. The results establish that the group’s forecasts lead USDA estimates, market consensus, and corn futures closing prices. Neudata are the first third party to be made aware of these results.

Neudata has combined insights from multiple empirical studies to provide 1) an overview of potential use cases for AIS-derived vessel tracking data, 2) a case study investigating the alignment of AIS-based trade estimates and official customs statistics, 3) an introduction to AIS data challenges, and 4) advice for data buyers.

From counting cars at mall and shopping centre parking lots to gauge consumer traffic, to calculating the shadows cast on floating-roof tanks to estimate global crude oil supply, satellite data has become one of the more well-known types of alternative data in the market. With significant numbers of institutional investors realizing the value of this data, we address the current state of the industry, as well as some words of caution when approaching satellite data.

We summarise a case study illustrating how corporate jet activity can yield signals that help investors to identify the most likely acquirer for a takeover target. We also outline an alternative approach to tracking corporate jets using free alternative data sources.

With 90% of today’s data created in the last two years, opportunities to leverage vast amounts of unstructured data sources are growing at an exponential rate. The proliferation of AI and big data is transforming the ESG industry – providing investors with a greater supply of more timely information and the ability to develop more sophisticated investing strategies. Alternative data is the driving force behind ESG 2.0.

We summarise conclusions drawn from an academic paper comparing Japanese CPI data with a Neudata listed alternative data provider in an attempt to evaluate the accuracy of official statistics vs a ‘true’ inflation measure. The authors conclude that 1) the Japanese CPI is a poor predictor of actual inflation when measured inflation is below c.2%, and 2) the US PCE deflator methodology is superior to the Japanese CPI methodology. We also evaluate several alternative Japanese data providers and recommend further academic reading on this topic.