Save The Date – Quandl is Hosting an Alternative Data Conference

Quandl

Quandl will host the inaugural Alternative Data Conference in New York City on January 17, 2017. In an action-packed half day we’ll explore alternative data as the next source of alpha for quantitative investing, and share never-before-seen data from business operations, agriculture, insurance policies and more. Read More

Alternative Data Spend in U.S. to Double in Next Five Years

Yahoo Finance

TABB Group has published what is likely the first analyst report on the future of alternative data, and estimates that spend on non-traditional data sets will double to $400 million in the next five years. While the full report is available only to TABB clients, its mere existence indicates growing interest in the field. Read More

Glassdoor Data Now an Input to U.S. Earnings

The Wall Street Journal

Job review company Glassdoor recently unveiled Local Pay Reports, a data product that provides real-time insights into wage trends in local markets around the U.S. As a corollary to government data, this could give investors more accurate eyes on company performance. But it comes at a price, and with a caution flag: how much do you trust the source? Read More

Quantamental Fundamentalism and the Donut Factory

Traders Magazine

Quantitative + Fundamental = Quantamental, says this piece, and argues that fundamental strategies will never go away. They will simply be augmented by quantitative research. Old story, new analogy: a donut. We’re not convinced on the analogy, but the article is worth a read. Read More

How Email Receipts Predicted GoPro’s Q3 Earnings

Quandl Blog

Using our own Email Receipt database to analyze the quarter leading up to GoPro’s disappointing earnings generated some surprising insights, including distinct weakness in the Amazon channel. These insights hinted at a less rosy picture than the one painted by the analyst community. Read More

Julia’s Growing Up: Time to Take a Look

Waters Technology

Julia is 20 times faster than Python, 100 times faster than R, and 93 times faster than Matlab. Just ask the Fed. It therefore eliminates the need to translate algorithms into C++ to make them run faster. Still a “young” language by programmers’ standards, Julia is gaining traction in capital markets. Once again, it’s not just about data; it’s about data and speed. More

U.S. ISPs Will Soon Need Your Permission to Sell Your Data

Lexology

From the annals of the privacy debate: the FCC just voted 3-2 to stop ISPs from sharing your personal data with third parties, like location data or browsing history, without your consent. The immediate effects to capital markets seem nominal, but downstream we wonder about the impact of this ruling. More

Do Sensor Trackers Make Us Better Liars?

SilliconANGLE

Data and truth are two different things. In today’s connected, sensor-laden world, this is easy to forget. As businesses use unprecedented volumes of data generated by consumers, this piece asks: “Is it to consumers’ benefit to attempt gaming the system, or even avoiding the system altogether? Is the business world’s quest for truth merely encouraging consumers to get better at lying?” Read More

Day Traders Confuse Retiring Baseball Player for Bank of Japan’s Governor

Bloomberg

Proof that machines (and people) still have trouble with semantics: the Japanese Yen almost suffered serious damage when a tweet about a retiring baseball player was misinterpreted because of its source. Read More