Alternative Data News and Insight

In the following piece, we highlight recent research concerning the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of international trade statistics, before discussing the contribution that alternative data sources can make to verifying and supplementing official numbers.

We highlight key findings from a Harvard Business School study that combines traditional ESG scores with alternative data sources that measure public sentiment momentum on corporate sustainability performance. The study finds that an ESG factor that goes long on firms with high or improving ESG performance and negative sentiment momentum, and short on firms with low or decreasing ESG performance and positive sentiment momentum delivers significant positive alpha.

As the use of alternative data within the investment community grows more prevalent, this prompts questions on dataset crowding and its implications for alpha generation. While opinions may be divided on the significance of buy-side client numbers in evaluating a dataset, an analysis of dataset crowding serves as an interesting source of insight into the interplay between supply and demand for different data types. In the following analysis, we explore: (1) levels of dataset crowding across different dataset types, (2) supply and demand for four dataset types: web scraping, web & app tracking, ESG, and location, (3) the types of data that will be most valued by investors in the future.

Although alternative data providers are united on the front that mobile gaming is a steadily growing market, they are, however, divided on its exact size. In this Intelligence report, we historically compare predictions made by three mobile gaming data vendors, and take a closer look as to why there is such a divergence in their estimates.

The past years have seen an emergence of numerous providers offering either signal outputs or analytics tools that rely on Natural Language Processing. In this Neudata Intelligence piece, we introduce several basic tenants of NLP, a selection of ‘alt data’ applications, and finally ask – how can a prospective user evaluate such products in the pre-testing phase?

According to industry trends (both anecdotal and empirical), the Japanese alternative data landscape is generally seen to be at an earlier stage of development than its European and US counterparts. In the following piece, we shed some light on the state of the market by looking at (1) domestic demand for alternative data (2) challenges faced by local data providers, and (3) some unique sources of consumer spending data from this region.

The growing supply of alternative data sources that offer insights into the ESG practices of the firm provides investors with more opportunities to build their own ESG ratings methodology. One that is better suited to a fund’s mandates, investment goals and offers edge. But where to find the data?

We explore the relationship between pharmaceutical companies’ patent portfolios and their financial performance. We also discuss the significance of different patent indicators to financial metrics (e.g. sales, market value, ROI) through evaluating findings from several research studies. Finally, we suggest several alternative data providers who can provide analysts with such metrics.