Alternative Data News and Insight

International media reports and discontinuations on our Scout platform suggest many foreign users are losing access to Chinese data. But observations from within the country tell a different story. After surveying domestic data providers, we outline the challenges offshore users face as China develops its regulatory approach for the data industry.

Private markets investors are increasingly seeking to build an information mosaic in-house by leveraging alternative data, including for due diligence, post-deal value creation and investment benchmarking. While saving consulting fees, alternative data vendors also offer additional angles and a means to assess target companies beyond more traditional deal-sourcing platforms. Although due diligence is case-specific, this report offers some ideas to help private markets investors validate or challenge their assumptions during the process.

The recent climate of economic uncertainty has sparked market volatility – creating opportunities for investors to benefit from macro strategies. As a result, many are increasingly turning to alternative data sources to get a timely gauge of market outcomes. In this report, we summarise the recent trends across macro datasets and the alternative sources that can help track the global economy.

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March 2023 has led to growing investor interest in alternative datasets that can track the banking sector. In this report, we highlight some of the publicly available sources as well datasets tracking deposits, loans and interest rates that can help gauge a bank’s health.

With more than 2,000 full Scout reports and 5,000 additional datasets on the Neudata platform, it’s not easy keeping track of which datasets are trending and why. In this report, we highlight transactional, web and app tracking, automotive and location datasets that gained clients and triallists in 1Q23.

After a lull during the pandemic, shareholder activism rebounded in 2022. This trend could accelerate in 2023, given the SEC’s new Universal Proxy Card rules and the uncertain economic outlook. In this report, we strip shareholder activity back to its basic components and assess its use cases – in particular, the impacts on financial performance. We also summarise where to find alternative data for shareholder activism and engagement.

Demographic shifts and pandemic-influenced lifestyle changes have given rise to new patterns of solo consumption, connection and companionship. Dubbed the loneliness economy, this growing sector of society is creating opportunities for many brands and companies. In this report, we highlight datasets that can help detect and analyse trends among East Asia’s growing number of singletons.

More than a year on from our previous intelligence piece, we revisit an area of alternative data that consistently interests our readers. In this report, we offer an overview of datasets providing insights into SaaS stocks and their performance drivers. We re-examine key vendors, new vendors and use cases for all your SaaS needs.

Current macroeconomic conditions have returned investors’ attention to the commodities markets. In 1Q23, we received particular enquiries about datasets for trading commodity futures contracts. In this report, we assess features of the most popular commodity datasets and how they can be deployed in futures contract trading strategies.

OpenAI's ChatGPT has gained global attention for its human-like abilities, fuelling heated competition among AI bot developers. Its underlying model, GPT-3.5/GPT-4, has been lauded for its ability to easily analyse and summarise unstructured data such as sentiment and patterns. In this report, we look at the technology’s alternative data use cases, how some vendors are incorporating it into their offerings, and potential limitations and implications.