How Big Data Controls Securities exchanges

How Big Data Controls Stock Markets:
Big data and technology govern the markets like never before. Between stalactite data and scanning social media, investment firms now do whatever it takes to gain the upper hand over their competitors.

Today, more than $5.3 trillion dollars shuffles around stock markets a day, mostly by high-
frequency trading algorithms. And with that kind of money on the line, investors have literally trillions of reasons to try and gain a competitive advantage, and over the last decade, they’ve turned to big data. But in a modern surveillance state, there’s near-infinite amounts of data, so what information is even valuable and how do you make use of it.

Companies have turned to satellite surveillance and combing social media for any data that could help them predict the next market movement.

Companies like Orbital Insights and RS Metrics monitor more than a quarter-million retail locations, 3,300 shopping malls, 25,000 oil storage tanks, and several other fields like real estate, commodity markets, and commercial airports.

Some interesting examples of these companies using big data to determine market movements were in 2015 when Orbital observed a sharp decline in car traffic outside Chipotle restaurants and reported it to their clients before a rapid 40% plunge in the stock price. And when traders wanted to monitor what Elon Musky was up to, RS Metrics flew a plane over Tesla’s Fremont plant and informed clients of Tesla’s new general assembly structure, car manufacturing activity, and output production rates, three days prior to it becoming public knowledge.