SURVIVORSHIP BIAS?

Chris,

The objective you are describing cannot be achieved with any data provider. We would have to create our own data collection system that immediately grabs data from the SEC, standardizes it ( some AI would be needed for footnotes ), applies corporate actions, and so on. A massive $10M undertaking with huge operating costs.

Delays will never go away with data providers. They serve a professional market that cannot invest in most of the listed stocks. Therefore there’s no incentive for them to add more staff to process the data faster during earnings for all companies. This extra staff would be sitting around in between quarters.

And since these delays will never go away, you will always be late to any information alpha vs. other HFT players like Goldman Sachs that do their own thing. Or look at it this way: what is the point of having S&P tell you exactly when they disseminated a certain line item if that very same point data was on the SEC the previous week ?

Patience and systematic investing is the true alpha for us. And it’s a better alpha than most hedge funds that do all sorts of crazy stuff. It’s just like investing with IPOs: you are almost always better off waiting a few months and even longer. The market is luring and forgiving: it always gives you a second chance :wink: Only exception I can recall is Google where the IPO price was a steal. Oh Google… if you are listening… please give me another chance!