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Asset managers have historically relied on traditional data sources such as financial statements, presentations, SEC filings, and sales figures to inform their investment decision. Albeit valuable, this data doesn’t usually give a complete and sufficiently timely picture. The data is not often actionable.
In recent years, fund managers have begun to identify, collect, clean, and analyze alternative data, which is data collected from non-traditional sources. Some of these sources include financial transactions, sensor inputs, web traffic, mobile devices, satellites, public records, and news sites. More often than not, these are sources that are generated outside the companies in question.
Sources of investing edge should be diversified, and in particular diversified away from what one’s competitors are doing. We need to diversify to provide an investing edge, but also to avoid being exposed to the same factors as our competitors, since their losses could then cascade through to our losses. And of course we need to diversify to tell a better story to our own investors as to why we are different and more innovative than other investment managers.
Diversification can be methodological (how to act on information) but can also be materials-based (what information to use). And alternative datasets are a great way to get at new perspectives on a company’s prospects.
It’s worthwhile to diversify one’s alpha away from traditional sources, and to do so among the many alternative data sources available. We’ve done the first step for you by vetting these alpha-generating data sources, and we’ve now got a very comprehensive set of stock selection signals which can help any quantitative or quantamental approach. We also offer raw data, so you can replicate what we’ve done or find your own insights with these unique sources.
Back in 2015, when ExtractAlpha started offering alpha signals and alternative data to clients – we had only two signals to offer. Our suite of offerings grew slowly, because most of the datasets we examine do not end up making the cut – due to data quality, breadth, or length issues, or simply because there doesn’t seem to be sufficient alpha in them. We had a high bar, both on our internal research and signal development, and when examining third party datasets, and it was always a strong talking point of ours that most alternative data didn’t actually add value. This is why our curated suite of data was relatively narrow, but especially useful. It’s not so narrow any more.
Judging from the returns to portfolios built from these various signals, our quant due diligence has paid off.
ExtractAlpha datasets and signals are used by hedge funds and asset management firms managing more than $1.5 trillion in assets in the U.S., EMEA, and the Asia Pacific. We work with quants, data specialists, and asset managers across the financial services industry.
Pricing is available for qualified buyers. Please see our list of solutions, and contact us for more information.
Estimize provides the world’s most accurate and representative institutional grade financial estimates, crowdsourced from a community of 120,000+ contributors via our web platform. Estimize’s estimates include EPS, Revenues, industry-specific KPIs, macroeconomic indicators, and more.
Visit Estimize website: https://www.estimize.com
ExtractAlpha owns and operates Estimize, a powerful crowd-sourced earnings sentiment engine renowned for its accuracy and reliability forecasting earnings.
We recommend that you begin your search on our Solutions page, then reach out to schedule a meeting with one of our product specialists. After a conversation, you may be granted access to AlphaClub, and continue browsing available datasets. Or you can start by getting access to backtesting data or our tools, and starting your trial. Contact us, we look forward to discussing alternative data with you soon!
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Alan joined ExtractAlpha in 2024. He is a tenured associate professor of finance at the University of Hong Kong, where he serves as the program director of the MFFinTech, teaches classes on quantitative trading and big data in finance, and conducts research in finance specializing in big data and alternative datasets. He has published research in prestigious journals and regularly presents at financial conferences. He previously worked in technical and trading roles at DC Energy, Bridgewater Associates, Microsoft and advises several fintech startups. He received his PhD in finance from Cornell and his Bachelors from Dartmouth.
John joined ExtractAlpha in 2023 as the Director of Partnerships & Customer Success. He has extensive experience in the financial information services industry, having previously served as a Director of Client Specialist at Refinitiv. John holds dual Bachelor’s degrees in Commerce and Architecture (Design) from The University of Melbourne.
Matija is a specialist in software sales and customer success, bringing experience from various industries. His career, before sales, includes tech support, software development, and managerial roles. He earned his BSc and Specialist Degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Montenegro.
Jack joined ExtractAlpha in 2022. Previously, he spent 20+ years supporting pre- and after-sales activities to drive sales in the Asia Pacific market. He has worked in many different industries including, technology, financial services, and manufacturing, where he developed excellent customer relationship management skills. He received his Bachelor of Business in Operations Management from the University of Technology Sydney.
Perry brings more than 20 years of Enterprise Software development, sales and customer engagement experience focused on Fortune 1000 customers. Prior to joining ExtractAlpha as a Technical Consultant, Perry was the founder, President and Chief Customer Officer at Solution Labs Inc. a data analytics company that specialized in the analysis of very large-scale computing infrastructures in place at some of the largest corporate data centers in the world.
Perry brings more than 20 years of Enterprise Software development, sales and customer engagement experience focused on Fortune 1000 customers. Prior to joining ExtractAlpha as a Technical Consultant, Perry was the founder, President and Chief Customer Officer at Solution Labs Inc. a data analytics company that specialized in the analysis of very large-scale computing infrastructures in place at some of the largest corporate data centers in the world.
Janette has 22+ years of leadership and management experience in FinTech and analytics sales and business development in the Asia Pacific region. In addition to expertise in quantitative models, she has worked on risk management, portfolio attribution, fund accounting, and custodian services. Janette is currently head of relationship management at Moody’s Analytics in the Asia-Pacific region, and was formerly Managing Director at State Street, head of sales for APAC Asset Management at Thomson Reuters, and head of Asia for StarMine. She is also a board member at Human Financial, a FinTech firm focused on the Australian superannuation industry.
Leigh founded Estimize in 2011. Prior to Estimize, Leigh ran Surfview Capital, a New York based quantitative investment management firm trading medium frequency momentum strategies. He was also an early member of the team at StockTwits where he worked on product and business development. Leigh is now the CEO of StarKiller Capital, an institutional investment management firm in the digital asset space.
Andrew is the CEO of Human Financial, a technology innovator that is pioneering consumer-led solutions for the superannuation industry. Andrew was previously CEO of Alpha Beta, a global quant hedge fund business. Prior to Alpha Beta he held senior roles in a number of hedge funds globally.
Jenny joined ExtractAlpha in 2023. Prior to that, she worked as a quantitative researcher for Chorus, a hedge fund under AXA Investment Managers. Jenny received her PhD in finance from the University of Hong Kong in 2023. Her research covers ESG, natural language processing, and market microstructure. Jenny received her Bachelor degree in Finance from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2019. Her research has been published in the Journal of Financial Markets.
Kristen joined ExtractAlpha in 2021 as a Sales Director. As a past employee of StarMine, Kristen has extensive experience in analyst performance analytics and helped to build out the sell-side solution, StarMine Monitor. She received her BS in Business Management from Cornell University.
Triloke has 10+ years experience in designing and developing software systems in the financial services industry. He joined ExtractAlpha in 2016. Prior to that, he worked as a senior software engineer at HSBC Global Technologies. He holds a Master of Applied Science degree from Ryerson University specializing in signal processing.
Jackie joined ExtractAlpha in 2018 as a quantitative researcher. He received his PhD in the field of optoelectronic physics from The University of Hong Kong in 2017. He published 17 journal papers and holds a US patent, and has 500 citations with an h-index of 13. Prior to joining ExtractAlpha, he worked with a Shenzhen-based CTA researching trading strategies on Chinese futures. Jackie received his Bachelor’s degree in engineering from Zhejiang University in 2013.
Yunan joined ExtractAlpha in 2019 as a quantitative researcher. Prior to that, he worked as a research analyst at ICBC, covering the macro economy and the Asian bond market. Yunan received his PhD in Economics & Finance from The University of Hong Kong in 2018. His research fields cover Empirical Asset Pricing, Mergers & Acquisitions, and Intellectual Property. His research outputs have been presented at major conferences such as AFA, FMA and FMA (Asia). Yunan received his Masters degree in Operations Research from London School of Economics in 2013 and his Bachelor degree in International Business from Nottingham University in 2012.
Prior to joining ExtractAlpha in 2022, Willett was a sales director for Vidrio Financial. Willett was based in Hong Kong for nearly two decades where he oversaw FIS Global’s Asset Management and Commercial Banking efforts. Willett worked at FactSet, where he built the Asian Portfolio and Quantitative Analytics team and oversaw FactSet’s Southeast Asian operations. Willett completed his undergraduate studies at Georgetown University and finished a joint degree MBA from the Northwestern Kellogg School and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2010. Willett also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.
Julie Craig is a senior marketing executive with decades of experience marketing high tech, fintech, and financial services offerings. She joined ExtractAlpha in 2022. She was formerly with AlphaSense, where she led marketing at a startup now valued at $4B. Prior to that, she was with Interactive Data where she led marketing initiatives and a multi-million dollar budget for an award-winning product line for individual and institutional investors.
Jeff is the CFO and COO of ExtractAlpha and directs our financial, strategic, and general management operations. He previously held the role of CFO at Estimize and two publicly traded firms, Multex and Market Guide. Jeff also served as CFO at private-equity backed companies, including Coleman Research, Ford Models, Instant Information, and Moneyline Telerate. He’s also held roles as advisor, partner, and board member at Total Reliance, CreditRiskMonitor, Mochidoki, and Resurge.
Vinesh founded ExtractAlpha in 2013 with the mission of bringing analytical rigor to the analysis and marketing of new datasets for the capital markets. Since ExtractAlpha’s merger with Estimize in early 2021, he has served as the CEO of both entities. From 1999 to 2005, Vinesh was the Director of Quantitative Research at StarMine in San Francisco, where he developed industry leading metrics of sell side analyst performance as well as successful commercial alpha signals and products based on analyst, fundamental, and other data sources. Subsequently, he developed systematic trading strategies for proprietary trading desks at Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley in New York. Most recently he was Executive Director at PDT Partners, a spinoff of Morgan Stanley’s premiere quant prop trading group, where in addition to research, he also applied his experience in the communication of complex quantitative concepts to investor relations. Vinesh holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and a graduate degree from the University of Cambridge, both in mathematics.
