
Stock Picks from Space (2019) - johnny313
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/stock-value-satellite-images-investing/586009/
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brenden2
> Investors are using real-time satellite images to predict retailers’ sales.
> Is that cheating?

This is no more "cheating" than using any other pseudo-publicly available
sources of information, such as credit card purchase data, yelp/foursquare/FB
checkins, or whatever. It's entirely legal in the same way sitting outside
Macy's and counting the number of people who enter and leave through the
public entrances.

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TeMPOraL
It's not cheating, but it gives one a perspective on just how far humanity can
go in figuring out ways some humans can get an advantage over other humans in
a silly, arbitrary, zero-sum PvP game we've somehow evolved.

I know that's unfair. But the way I feel, there's lots of absurdity in this.
In a more reasonable world, if you wanted to know when some CEO is leaving on
vacation, you'd just _ask them_. You wouldn't have to spy on them with a
satellite.

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p1necone
I don't think investing in shares is zero-sum. Day trading might be, but so
far _most people_ win in long term investment.

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jklein11
The act of trading is zero-sum(slightly worse when you consider taxes and
fees). On one side, a person is getting a right to an uncertain cash flow
based on the companies performance and giving up a lump sum of cash in the
present. On the other side the person is giving up the uncertain future
cashflows for a lump sum in the present. Both people can win based on their
risk/liquidity preferences but one person's upside is the other person's
downside.

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oceanplexian
I'm not sure you're using the terminology zero-sum correctly. Yes bad
investments can be zero-sum, but as a whole, the economy is positive-sum.
Positive sum doesn't mean "Everybody gets paid the same", it means that the
value output from a closed system exceeds the input (e.g. greater than the sum
of its parts)

If you're referring to derivitives, you could technically refer to it as zero
sum, since speculating on a contract between two parties doesn't necessarily
create value. But there's an argument to be made that options actually help
liquidity, and the act of being able to purchase insurance contracts on
investments reduces risk, meaning more people are likely to invest, which
does, in the end, actually create value.

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TeMPOraL
> _but as a whole, the economy is positive-sum_

But is that due to trading? I thought it's due to population growth and
progress of technology creating more wealth faster.

A locally zero-sum game in a growing environment may not feel like zero-sum.

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ajaalto
Trading helps the society to determine various prices and therefore makes it
possible to allocate resources more efficiently.

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TeMPOraL
It does, but I get the distinct feeling that we're putting cart before the
horse. I mean, we ought to be able to correctly price wheat and steel better
than through ever-growing financial industries and having people use
satellites to spy on CEOs.

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davidw
"Why you should buy index funds, Exhibit 494920".

It's not cheating, but it's something you probably can't compete against, so
you shouldn't try.

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cheez
You don't need to compete, stock price tells the story.

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harry8
There's a strong case for firms to publish more and higher quality data now
the web makes it easy. Forget sattelite images use carpark stats from entry
and exit and so on. Many of these equity analysts will do your job of
analysing the data for you giving you a bigger lead on a developing problem or
strategy failure allowing for sooner correction. On the flip side, earlier
notice of strategy success for quicker ramp up decisions.

"Yes but we do more sophisticated data analysis anyway" \- firstly, I call BS
on that CEO & management career self-marketing and secondly, if I'm wrong and
it's already being done at an excellent level there is nothing to fear putting
it out there - you can spank analysts doing a shoddy job with hard analysis
scotching undeserved "impression, zeitgeist and rumour" based negative market
sentiment.

Of course every board of directors should have an IT committee and a data
committee to go with the audit committee with a similarly highly qualified
chair of those comittees. It's basically unthinkable not to have a very
qualified accountant on the board. Should be the same for IT and Data -
although IBM Global Services, Accenture, Oracle etc etc will campaign heavily
against having people who know what they're doing on the board!

Chair of the data committee would be a crucial figure in earnings calls and so
on - they better know their stats!

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perryh2
Using Foursquare data seems easier to me.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14052444](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14052444)

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larnmar
Investment idea: build a bunch of projectors that fool orbiting satellites
into reading empty parking lots as full, then short retailers’ stocks at
earnings time, knowing that all the big smart money will be on the other side.

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batt4good
Filling spots with inflatable "dummy" cars would probably work better - or you
know just cover your parking with canvas shades haha

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m3kw9
This type of play usually used for short term buying and selling. I.e options.

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deepnotderp
Satellite data has been used for a very, very long time.

