The Investment Association, 5th Sept. 2019
It was great to join the panel at the Data in Asset Management event hosted by The Investment Association in central London yesterday (5th Sept. 2019)
We discussed some of the whys and hows of alternative data – here’s what we covered:
- Data is not oil, data is fuel! (h/t Refinitiv)
- An audience poll told us some 30% had ‘no idea’ of the concept of alternative data going into the event — while 26% already use one or more alt-data feeds
- Alt-data is ‘non-traditional / not reported by companies or establishments’ – explaining the growth to an estimated $1.7bn industry by 2020
- Data quality (obviously) is key – Hivemind spend a huge amount of their focus on what they term ‘data wrangling’. Refinitiv estimate some 50% (or more) of data scientist teams’ valuable time is spent cleansing data to avoid garbage-in / garbage-out
- According to Battlefin increasingly popular datasets are ‘quasi-alternative’ – these are relatively structured so are easier to understand, to value and to ingest
- Battlefin and others like them (Neudata, Eagle Alpha) fulfil a hugely valuable role in the ecosystem – serving as a bridge between vendors/providers and end-users/clients looking to understand what datasets are out there that can best fit their needs
- Change is constant and change is accelerating — if we’re not on board soon where will we be 5 years from now?
Thank you to the IA and fellow panelists Alpha FMC, Hivemind, and Battlefin for the opportunity.