The Alternative Data Podcast The Quantbot Episode
Jun 9, 2025
Join Paul White, CEO and co-founder of QuantBot, as he dives into the nuances of launching a hedge fund in 2009. With a rich background in quantitative research, he shares insights on the evolving landscape of alternative data, machine learning's impact on finance, and the increasing importance of outsourcing for newer funds. Paul discusses the challenges of using shorter-history datasets, the benefits of local market presence in Asia, and his predictions on AI's transformative effect on data analytics. A fascinating look at the intersection of technology and finance!
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Data-Centric Quant Trading
- QuantBot is a quantitative hedge fund focused on global statistical arbitrage and systematic futures.
- The firm treats data as central to strategy development and trading performance.
Pit Hand Signals As Early Alternative Data
- Traders once used hand signals in exchange pits to send faster signals than market feeds.
- Paul regards those early manual hacks as an early form of alternative data usage.
Food-Chain Data Sparked NLP Work
- Early alternative data included "food chain" datasets mapping supplier-customer links between companies.
- Those vendor pitches spurred work on NLP and textual feature extraction internally.