Where can I find alternative data for investment research?

Alternative data refers to non-traditional data—such as web traffic, credit card transactions, foot traffic, satellite imagery, and job postings—used by investors to gain early insights into corporate performance and economic trends.

Where you source alternative data depends on whether you are an institutional investor (hedge fund, private equity, asset manager) or an individual/retail researcher on a budget.

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1. Data Aggregators & Discovery Marketplaces

If you aren't sure which specific dataset you need, these marketplaces aggregate, categorize, and vet alternative data providers.

• Neudata: The premier intelligence platform and broker for institutional buy-side firms. They evaluate thousands of alternative datasets and advise funds on sourcing.
• Eagle Alpha: Offers access to 2,000+ curated datasets along with compliance frameworks and trial data.
• BattleFin: Known for its data discovery platform and conferences, helping funds test and integrate alternative data signals.
• Snowflake Marketplace & AWS Data Exchange: Cloud-native platforms where you can browse, query, and directly subscribe to institutional datasets without building custom scrapers.
• Datarade / DataZn: Directories for comparing vendor offerings, coverage, and pricing across various industries.

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2. Specialized Data Providers (by Category)

A. Consumer Transaction & Spending Data

Captures real-time consumer spending patterns across credit/debit card transactions and point-of-sale systems.

• Bloomberg Second Measure: Analyzes billions of anonymized U.S. credit card transactions to track revenue and customer retention.
• Earnest Research & Consumer Edge: Granular spending feeds covering thousands of ticker symbols and private companies.
• YipitData: Combines web scraping, receipt data, and transaction tracking tailored specifically for equity analysis.

B. Web Traffic, Mobile App & E-Commerce Data

Tracks online consumer intent, web traffic volume, and app adoption.

• Similarweb: Web traffic metrics, user engagement, and search engine trends across millions of domains.
• Sensor Tower: Mobile app downloads, active users, and in-app purchase revenue metrics.
• Thinknum: Web-scraped metrics covering retail pricing, social media growth, store locations, and product inventories.

C. Geolocation & Foot Traffic

Monitors physical customer movement and store visits.

• Placer.ai & SafeGraph: Detailed foot-traffic analytics for retail stores, restaurants, shopping centers, and real estate.
• Advan Research / Unacast: Location data tracking foot traffic near public and private company locations.

D. Geospatial & Satellite Imagery

Observes physical assets in real time (e.g., parking lot fullness, shipping vessel activity, oil storage).

• Planet Labs & Maxar Technologies: Earth observation imagery updated daily.
• Orbital Insight: Uses AI and computer vision on satellite imagery to track supply chain bottlenecks, mining outputs, and store visits.

E. Employment, Hiring & Corporate Insights

Reveals corporate hiring surges, employee turnover, and skill demands.

• Revelio Labs: Standardizes workforce and resume data to track company headcount, hiring trends, and skill composition.
• Greenwich.HR & LinkUp: Scrape job postings directly from employer career sites to signal expansion or downsizing.

F. Sentiment & Unstructured Text Research

Extracts market signal from social channels, forums, news, and SEC filings.

• AlphaSense / Sentieo: AI-powered search across earnings call transcripts, broker research, SEC filings, and expert calls.
• StockTwits / Brandwatch: Social sentiment analysis and brand perception monitoring.

G. Supply Chain & Trade Logistics

Measures international trade flows, vessel tracking, and import/export manifests.

• S&P Global Panjiva & ImportGenius: Global customs manifests and bill of lading data.

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3. Integrated Financial Terminals

Most major institutional software embeds alternative data into traditional equity workflows:

• Bloomberg Terminal: Features built-in datasets including satellite oil inventories, supply chain mapping (SPLC), and Second Measure data integration.
• Open:FactSet Marketplace: Integrates curated third-party alt-data alongside core financial statements.
• LSEG Workspace (Refinitiv) & S&P Global: Provide raw and processed alternative datasets alongside market data feeds.

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4. Low-Cost & Retail-Friendly Options

For independent traders, small funds, or academics on a limited budget:

• Quiver Quantitative: Aggregates alternative data tailored for retail investors, including Congressional trades, corporate lobbying, insider buys, and government contracts.
• SOV.AI: Provides affordable real-time alternative data feeds (SEC/EDGAR events, Wikipedia view trends, patent filings).
• Google Trends: Free tool for tracking search interest volume over time for brand names and consumer products.
• SEC EDGAR API: Free, direct access to US corporate filings, XBRL structured data, and insider trading forms.
• Kaggle & Hugging Face: Free, open datasets often uploaded for NLP and sentiment projects.

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Key Things to Consider Before Sourcing

1. Compliance / MNPI: Ensure data providers strictly adhere to Material Non-Public Information (MNPI) guidelines, privacy laws (GDPR/CCPA), and user-consent policies.
2. Signal Uniqueness vs. Noise: High-cost datasets do not guarantee alpha. Test if the dataset provides a unique forward-looking signal or if it simply mimics consensus.
3. Data Cleaning & Point-in-Time History: Backtesting requires clean, point-in-time historical data (at least 3–5 years) to avoid look-ahead bias.