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posted by martyb on Saturday July 06 2019, @03:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-rich-get-richer dept.

Counting cars in parking lots turns out to be a good way to predict how well a big box retailer is doing--and trade their stock just before quarterly reports come out. Similarly for satellite photos of field crops and activity in other industries. Quartz has the story, https://qz.com/1652293/how-to-make-money-with-rs-metrics-and-orbital-insight-space-data/

Satellite speculators have reportedly used techniques like car-counting, tracking oil inventories or watching corn fields to make profitable forecasts of equity and commodity markets. Now, research from finance professors at UC Berkeley and the University of Kentucky provides the first independent evidence that these trading strategies work—and that they’re likely being used to the detriment of small-time investors.

The space datasets in question, created by firms RS Metrics and Orbital Insight, allow sophisticated investors to gain near-realtime understanding of same-store sales growth, an important metric for understanding the business of physical retailers like Walmart, Target or Costco. Investors can then make bets on or against companies just before they disclose quarterly financial results.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 06 2019, @09:28PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday July 06 2019, @09:28PM (#863944)

    Teslas are definitely visible around town here, too. But, then, just about any current model of car you recognize and notice is pretty easy to count around town in one of the 384 defined metro areas. Sell 38,000 units, that's 100 cars per town. People tend to drive their new cars quite a bit, so if there's 100 of anything new on the roads in your metro area, you're sure to notice a few.

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