Alternative Data’s Hard Labor
Faye Kilburn investigates quantitative funds' attempts to sift gold from the torrent of alternative datasets.
Life as a quant at one of the world’s leading factor investors can be a difficult and frustrating experience. At any one time, $74 billion quantitative hedge fund Acadian Asset Management has up to two dozen researchers dedicated to finding new signals in so-called “alternative” datasets—that is, data beyond traditional prices and technical analytics.
These datasets can range from the mundane, like anonymized credit and debit card transaction data and text-based analysis of webpages and social
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