3 Alternative Datasets That Every Hedge Fund Should Have

Trading strategies that worked for hedge funds a decade ago, will leave even the best managers lagging in 2022.

When adapting to ever-evolving market research, one strategy that is becoming increasingly popular with hedge funds, as well as with private equity and venture capital firms, is integrating alternative data into their research. In other words, they are adopting the use of non-traditional data with predictive value.

A recent survey conducted by Lowenstein Sandler discovered that nearly four out of five hedge funds that use alternative data, plan to increase their budgets by over 10% in 2022, and 18% intend to up their budgets by over 50%.

As a global leader in the alternative data space, TipRanks provides alternative data to leading quant funds. These are three of our most popular datasets. 

INVESTOR TRANSACTIONS

This unique dataset tracks changes in real investors’ actual portfolios, including how many are opening or closing positions, or adding or reducing their holdings in each stock.

TipRanks tracks the buy and sell transactions of over half a million retail investors through its Smart Portfolio analysis tool, which Nasdaq integrates onto its platform. The Investor Transactions, or Crowd Wisdom, dataset encompasses changes in real investors’ actual portfolios. This provides a powerful indicator of current trends, offering a stronger gauge than sentiment. This feature enables hedge fund managers to quickly assess and respond to any significant changes in retail investor behavior. Retail investors are also ranked according to their performance and it is possible to distinguish between the activities of all investors and the top performers.

Market Coverage (no. of stocks): 40,000 U.S., 3,000 Canada, 1,000 UK
Update Frequency: FTP- hourly/ daily, API- real-time
Coverage Start Date: January 2009

ANALYST RATINGS

This unique real-time feed tracks the stock ratings of over 10,000 sell-side analysts and enables a focus on the rating consensus and average price targets of the top performers.

The ability to access the aggregated stock ratings and price targets of Wall Street analysts is immensely valuable. It is even more powerful when focused on the forecasts of the top-performing analysts. TipRanks is the only research platform that offers this level of analysis. It also stands out, as it ranks almost analysts based on their performance track record, covering over 23,000 stocks globally. This dataset enables managers to easily access the analyst rating consensus, average, highest, and lowest price targets of any stock based on ratings made over the past three months, as well as a detailed list of ratings per analyst going back 12 months, or longer. Data can focus on all analysts or only on the top performers.

Market Coverage (no. of analysts): 8,000 U.S, 650 Canada, 1,500 UK, 266 Australia, 262 Germany, 46 Switzerland
Update Frequency: FTP- hourly/ daily, API- real-time
Coverage Start Date: January 2009

RISK ANALYSIS

This quarterly feed offers a quick way to track any reported changes in risk factors, as submitted to the SEC through 10-K ad 10Q forms.

This dataset simplifies tracking changes that companies report to the SEC in their monthly and annual reports. It classifies and tracks 24 risk categories and subcategories. The dataset provides hedge fund managers with a broad overview of reported risks, a comparison to earlier reports and other benchmarks, and shows the actual text changes that companies have made.

Market Coverage (no. of stocks): 20,000 U.S.
Update Frequency: Quarterly
Coverage Start Date: April 2017

ABOUT TIPRANKS DATA

Our powerful proprietary technology scans millions of analyst reports, financial blogs, company filings, news publications & SEC submissions.

All of our datasets are tested, licensed, and trusted by some of the world’s largest quantitative, multi-strategy, and discretionary funds.

The data is delivered either via REST API or FTP, recorded point-in-time, and mapped to a specific stock ticker, with a time stamp. Corporate action is analyzed and fitted for backward compatibility.

Free trials of all datasets are available upon request.

Contact us at sales@tipranks.com