Author: Faye Kilburn
Source: Inside Market Data | 17 Nov 2014
Categories: Data Display & Analytics | Content Focus | Alliances, Mergers, & Acquisitions
Atlanta, GA-based decision support analytics provider Lucena Research is adding data about cell phone activity levels data from Atlanta-based consumer travel trends and anonymous population-movement intelligence data provider AirSage into its QuantDesk predictive analytics platform, to provide hedge funds with an additional data inputs for predicting company share prices.
AirSage uses proprietary Wireless Signal Extraction technology to detect anonymous signals from mobile devices such as cell phones and tablets on cellular networks in the US, which it then aggregates to demonstrate how the devices move over time.
Previously, AirSage targeted its data at private businesses, government agencies and organizations such as civil engineering companies, who can use the information to model, evaluate and analyze the location, movement and flow of people and assets.
However, in the first partnership of its kind for AirSage, the vendor is providing data to Lucena, which incorporates the data into its predictive analytics to enable hedge funds to predict stock movement.
“AirSage aggregates cellular activity data by location. In other words, they track how many active cell phone users there are at any time in any square mile in the US. The data, if tracked over time, can be very valuable for identifying customer behavior trends and their potential impact on certain businesses’ top and bottom lines,” says Lucena co-founder and chief executive Erez Katz. “For example, if you want to find out how many active cell phone users are currently walking in every Walmart across the nation, you can aggregate the data through active cell phone signals.”
By comparing wireless signals between stores─such as Lowes and Home Depot─or comparing the signals in the same locations from one quarter to the next, Lucena can use the data as a predictive indicator of how a stock might perform.
“The information is most valuable when it is compared historically. It’s all about ‘relatively’─so, relative to last quarter, how active have shoppers been in a certain store chain or location…. That can be precursory knowledge of what’s to come,” Katz says, adding that internal quality assurance tests conducted by Lucena to identify how predictive the cellular activity data is have proved “very encouraging,” he adds.
Lucena’s engine captures AirSage’s raw data and runs it through its algorithmic analysis to transform it into a quantitative measure that can be incorporated with over 350 other indicators to provide a prediction of how a stock might perform. The data is available as a premium add-on to existing subscriptions.
“By leveraging a broad base of transferable knowledge about what population analytics can reveal, we have expanded the industries we serve to now include hedge funds. Partnering with Lucena Research─a leader in machine-learning analysis─is another exciting next step in advancing how AirSage data is used,” says AirSage founder and chief executive Cy Smith in a statement.
By acting as a primary distribution vehicle for AirSage’s data for capital markets, QuantDesk allows users to leverage the data without investing in infrastructure or needing to create their own analytics, Katz says.