The Book of Alternative Data

CHAPTER 11Surveys and Crowdsourced Data

11.1. INTRODUCTION

Later, in Chapter 12, we will analyze and discuss the use of PMI data. In essence, PMI data is collected from surveys of managers in the industry concerning their economic expectations. Essentially, PMIs can be utilized as a proxy for more traditional macroeconomic datasets, such as GDP, which tend to be released on a heavily lagged basis, as we already discussed in Chapter 1. However, there are many different contexts where survey data can be utilized by investors. In this chapter, we will discuss the use of other types of survey data that can be gathered from sources such as consumers or subject matter experts. We will discuss two case studies to show how they can be utilized to understand consumer products (in this case produced by computer games firms) and also to estimate crude oil production.

Later in this chapter, we will examine alpha capture data. These datasets essentially consist of sell-side broker recommendations. In the final part of this chapter, we will look at survey data for corporate earnings releases and macroeconomic data releases. We will show how crowdsourcing can be used to compile these datasets.

11.2. SURVEY DATA AS ALTERNATIVE DATA

Data obtained by surveying people who have a view on a company (or any other entity of interest) or an asset (physical or financial) may turn out to be very insightful. This is particularly the case when information is not obtainable in other ways, or is obtainable ...