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An Anonymous Coward writes:

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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