Exabel and Eagle Alpha’s partnership takes on this challenge end to end. By combining Eagle Alpha’s deep knowledge and expertise in the alternative data ecosystem with Exabel’s powerful analysis platform, investment teams can finally tackle these operational and technical challenges holistically, delivering efficient data evaluation, at scale.
This episode features an interview with Jonathan Chin, Co-Founder and Head of Data and Growth Strategy at Facteus. Please enjoy this dialogue between Jonathan and your host, Brendan Furlong.
The recent rally off the June 16 lows (S&P 500 +5.36%, Nasdaq +7.57%, Russell 3000 +5.42%) has made some crowded shorts more squeezable. We have seen the number of highly squeezable stocks in our Squeeze metric since June 15 more than double, and our average squeeze score has increased by over 250% (from 12.22 to 31.48). The Consumer Discretionary (primarily auto) and HealthCare (Biotech) sectors have the most constituents in the top 25 most squeezable stocks.
Alternative data is increasingly being used in private markets, including private equity, real estate, credit, and infrastructure, across deal origination, due diligence, and post-acquisition value creation and risk mitigation. Initially, interest in alternative data began when companies wanted additional information around digital market spend comparisons and reputation and social media review comparisons.
External data, commonly known as alternative data, is any data generated from outside an organization, with examples including employment data, geolocation data, social media data, and consumer transaction data. The data is derived from two main sources (i) data companies that are set up to monetize data and (ii) companies that have “exhaust” data to monetize. The data revolution is being driven by developments in cloud computing, advances in data science, and rapid data creation.The goal of this report is to showcase the art of what is possible with external data through the lens of consultants working with corporate and private equity to implement data-driven decision-making. This report leans heavily on contributions from leaders in the consultancy space including EY, Bain & Company, West Monroe, Strategy Titan, and Asgard Data. For further information on the information contained in this report, please reach out to michael.finnegan@eaglealpha.com.
Employment data has been the 4th most popular alternative data category on the Eagle Alpha data discovery platform over the past 12 months, seeing a 40% YoY increase in the number of employment datasets onboarded. Job listings data provide asset managers holistic information on total employee count, job functions, skills, gender, and tenure which can then be used to measure firm performance, hiring strategy, employee turnover, headcount growth, and estimate expenses. Employment data can also take the form of employee profiles and company reviews which can help measure employee perception and sentiments, thus providing a good use case not only for firms dealing with public equities but also for private equity in the form of deal origination analysis and due diligence.
Cryptocurrency, or “crypto” as it has become widely referred to, has been one of the quickest moving trends in the investment space of late, with retail and institutional investors throwing their hats in the ring. While traditional markets must obtain all their information from external entities, through conventional channels like Bloomberg or via alternative sources such as satellite and geolocation, cryptocurrency provides the opportunity to also look at global internal data. Thanks to blockchain technology, you can get real-time statistics for anything on-chain.
ESG is the hottest topic in the data world right now. Regulators and asset owners are putting increasing pressure on funds to invest in a more environmentally friendly and socially responsible way. This provides a great opportunity to funds who offer ESG solutions and we have seen massive growth in the AUM directed to funds claiming to incorporate ESG factors into their investment process.
Investors need to be very careful about how they interpret self-reported ESG data. Not all ESG controversies are the sameAn “outside-in” approach provides a more balanced perspective. Alternative data is particularly valuable at plugging data gaps in the social factor. A data-driven ESG approach can enable more informed engagement with companies. Alternative data can help plug gaps in regulatory reporting requirements.
Once a quarter, Eagle Alpha’s director of data strategy and analytics, Ronan Crosson, is joined by Peter Greene and Ben Kozinn from New York law firm, Lowenstein Sandler. These conversations are part of Eagle Alpha’s client-only monthly legal workshops. In this episode, Peter and Ben discuss this quarter’s most pertinent topic in the alternative data industry surrounding mobile app data provider, App Annie, and the SEC’s decision to charge them with securities fraud. The group addresses the confusion surrounding the use of insider trading law in this securities fraud case, its impact on the decision on the wider market, and provides expert advice for app data buyers following the SEC’s decision. Please enjoy this dialogue between Peter Greene, Ben Kozinn, and your host, Ronan Crosson.