BST Awards 2022: Best alternative data provider to the buy side—QuantCube Technology

Overview

QuantCube analyzes billions of alternative data points in real time to uncover macroeconomic insights ahead of the market, providing users with an edge in their investment strategies. Portfolio managers use QuantCube’s Macroeconomic Intelligence Platform (MIP) to gain insights on macro regime changes faster than traditional means, enhancing their investment strategies before markets react.

What problem does it address?  

QuantCube’s expertise in combining and analyzing alternative data sources allows it to pinpoint market turning points and regime change ahead of the market and in advance of consensus and official data. Users benefit from the identification of inflection points based on real-time market intelligence, allowing them to apply a risk on/risk off model.

Secret sauce 

QuantCube’s ability to combine and analyze a range of data sources to draw out actionable insights is what sets it apart from other similar providers.

Data sources encompass:

• Textual data such as news and social media data
• Structured data such as job vacancies and industry reports
• Geospatial data from satellites
• Geolocation data tracking international shipping, flights and telecoms data
• As well as real-time data, QuantCube’s data lake offers over 10 years of historical data

Recent milestones

In the last 12 months QuantCube launched:

• Indicators covering the energy sector, including the crude oil risk sentiment and the liquefied natural gas commodity trade indicator
• Port congestion indicators, showing levels of congestion in key ports of Shanghai, Los Angeles/Long Beach and Rotterdam
• Four new real-time economic indicators using intelligence gathered from global satellite data from the European Space Agency, monitoring urban growth, NO2 pollution levels, water stress and agricultural outputs

Future objectives 

New initiatives include:

• Launch of additional commodity indicators covering mining and agriculture
• Enhanced macro platform extending coverage to emerging markets, including India and Brazil, with the purpose of providing macro variables for the G20 countries
• New partnerships for global distribution of QuantCube’s macro nowcast data to the wider investment community, as well as a joint product release with a renowned partner

Why they won

For large numbers of buy-side firms, alternative data represents one of the most readily available means of competitive differentiation and alpha. QuantCube Technology wins the best alternative data provider category in this year’s BST Awards thanks to its Macroeconomic Intelligence Platform, a service designed to provide buy-side firms with macro-economic insights before that information becomes widely available in the market. It’s a compelling proposition made all the more enticing with the recent addition of energy sector, shipping congestion and economic indicators that managers can use to inform their investment strategies.