New Datasets

• Connotate - Web scraping, data collection, and monitoring services.
• Mozenda - Web scraping software that integrates with databases and BI toolkits.
• Business Intelligence Advisors - Founded by CIA employees, analyze earnings calls and other management commentary.
• DAR Partners - Sales consultants for alternative data providers.
• Infotrie - News analytics and sentiment data provider with data on 50k stocks, topics, people, and commodities.
• RootMetrics - Mobile network performance data; subsidiary of IHS Markit.
• OpenSignal - Crowdsourced mobile network performance data.

Updates

• YipitData launches Southwest Airlines (LUV) dataset. The dataset tracks available seat miles and departures on the airport-pair, weekday, aircraft, and individual flight level. (YipitData)
• Geospatial Insight, a satellite data provider, launches TankWatch dataset for monitoring global oil storage and inventories. (Penn Energy)
• M Science, a data aggregator, launches M Data Viz platform for visualization of it’s flagship video game dataset. (BusinessWire)
• See full public database of 245 data providers.

Requests for Data The AlternativeData.org network has hundreds of multibillion L/S and Long-only funds looking for very targeted datasets. Below are some specific Requests for Data from a selection of these funds. Please reach out to data@alternativedata.org if you have datasets on any of the following:

• LinkedIn - Profile data on employees of top ~25k companies.
• Merchant Acquirers - Market share data of companies involved in credit card routing and exclusivity agreements (e.g. First Data Corp, WorldPay).
• Amazon - Earnings power, industry expansion, country regulations, digital advertising revenue, etc.
• Any alternative data on Canon or The New York Times

New Jobs

• Alternative Data Research Manager - $40bn Fund (New York)
• Quantamental Analyst - Top Hedge Fund (New York)
• Equity Financial Analyst - Point72 (New York | Stamford)
• Senior Python Developer - Alternative Data Group (New York)
• Project Architecture Manager - Alternative Data Group (New York)
• Data Engineer - Wolfe Research (New York)
• See 59 other openings for Investment Research, Data Analyst, Data Engineer, and Data Scientist

News & Insights

• Airbnb grew ~50% in 2017 according to alternative data sources: 
  • YipitData tracked global listings up 40% and room-nights stayed up 50% YoY. (YipitData)
  • 1010Data, a credit card data provider, found that US bookings grew 49% YoY, significantly outpacing to the hotel industry average of 28%. (MediaPost)
• AlternativeData.org published an analysis of alternative data full-time employees (FTEs) on the buy-side. 
  • The number of alternative data FTEs has grown ~450% in last 5 years.
  • Most alternative data FTEs have 11+ years experience and do not have graduate degrees.
  • Tech, Academia, and Data Providers are quickly becoming main channels for sourcing alternative data FTEs.
  • Cost of an alternative data team starts at $1.5 – $2.5m.
• Funds are paying total compensation of nearly $180k for the average engineer/quant role. (efinancialcareers)
• The Chartered Alternative Data Analyst Institute launches with plans to develop an exam-based curriculum for standardizing best practices in alternative data analytics. (FinAlternatives, Integrity Research)
• J.P. Morgan attributes climb in Institutional Investor sell-side research rankings to alternative data incorporation. “In a statement, Sunil Garg, J.P. Morgan’s head of international equity research in Asia and EMEA, says the bank has worked to ensure that its research coverage footprint is among the largest of all sell-side research houses by using alternative-data analysis techniques.” (Institutional Investor)
  • UBS also credited use of alternative data through UBS Evidence Lab for their top research ranking. (Institutional Investor)
• Sentieo, a data interface, correctly predicts the Twitter, Grubhub, Skechers, and Sodastream earnings beats using data from Google Trends, Alexa, and Twitter mentions. (Sentieo)
• Schroders incorporates alternative data not to implement quantitative approaches, but to augment its fundamental analyses. Having hired their first data scientist in September 2014, the fund now employs 27 such employees.“The data that does not fit into our analysts’ spreadsheets is the gap that we are trying to fill.” - Mark Ainsworth, Head of Data Insights, Schroders. (MarketsMedia)
• Automakers explore monetizing the data collected by smarter cars. "Hedge funds probing the health of the economy want anonymized trunk sensor data to see if you bought anything when you went to the mall." (Bloomberg)

Other reading:

• T-Mobile claims that RootMetrics rankings, the widely cited reports on mobile coverage, are biased in favor of Verizon due to a dataset of "paid consultants." T-Mobile points to OpenSignal, a crowdsourced mobile coverage dataset, as an alternative source that provides unbiased data. According to OpenSignal, T-Mobile is on equal ground with Verizon in coverage and speed. (Android Authority)
• ARLnow.com, an Arlington, VA news source, reports large traffic volume from an "internal Amazon.com page devoted to its HQ2 search," leading to speculation that Arlington is in the final mix for new Amazon HQ. The report does not disclose the referral URL or identification methods, leaving the possibility that a crawler or bot using Amazon Web Services is being mistaken for employee traffic. (ARLnow, Business Insider)

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