Two distinct approaches have evolved in active investment management: systematic (or quant) and discretionary investing. Systematic approaches rely on algorithms for a repeatable and data-driven approach to identify investment opportunities across many securities; in contrast, a discretionary approach involves an in-depth analysis of a smaller number of securities. These two approaches are becoming more similar as fundamental managers take more data-science-driven approaches.
Even fundamental traders now arm themselves with quantitative techniques, accounting for $55 billion of systematic assets, according to Barclays. Agnostic to specific companies, quantitative funds trade patterns and dynamics across a wide swath of securities. Quants now account for about 17% of total hedge fund assets, data compiled by Barclays shows.
ML and alternative data
Hedge funds have long looked for alpha through informational advantage and the ability to uncover new uncorrelated signals. Historically, this included things such as proprietary surveys of shoppers, or voters ahead of elections or referendums. Occasionally, the use of company insiders, doctors, and expert networks to expand knowledge of industry trends or companies crosses legal lines: a series of prosecutions of traders, portfolio managers, and analysts for using insider information after 2010 has shaken the industry.
In contrast, the informational advantage from exploiting conventional and alternative data sources using ML is not related to expert and industry networks or access to corporate management, but rather the ability to collect large quantities of data and analyze them in real-time.
Three trends have revolutionized the use of data in algorithmic trading strategies and may further shift the investment industry from discretionary to quantitative styles: – The exponential increase in the amount of digital data – The increase in computing power and data storage capacity at lower cost – The advances in ML methods for analyzing complex datasets
- Can We Predict the Financial Markets Based on Google’s Search Queries?, Perlin, et al, 2016, Journal of Forecasting
