Why traditional investing tools are no longer enough: Introducing Signals

Emily Cresswell | 6 min read | Oct 09, 2024

In today’s blog post we’ll cover the challenges of modern day investing, how to utilize Signals to improve your trading and investment strategies, and what indicators feed into our C-Score.

Why consumer data is the solution modern investors need

For decades, investors have relied on a set of traditional tools to guide their decisions: quarterly earnings reports, analyst ratings, technical analysis, and news headlines. While these methods have served well in the past, today’s fast-paced markets demand more. Traditional investment tools are no longer enough to keep investors ahead of the game. With the rise of real-time data and advanced analytics, modern investors need access to insights that reflect the rapidly shifting landscape of consumer behavior and market trends.

By harnessing the power of real-time consumer spending data and predictive analytics, we can spot trends before they’re reflected in the market. In this post, we’ll explore the limitations of traditional investing tools, how data-driven strategies are changing the game, and why Signals is the solution modern investors need.

The Problem with Traditional Investing Tools

Delayed Information Most traditional investment tools rely on historical data, from quarterly earnings reports to stock performance charts. By the time this information becomes available to retail investors, the market has often already priced it in. For example, waiting for earnings reports to make a decision means reacting to data that is weeks or months old. In fast-moving markets, this kind of delay can mean missing out on key opportunities.

Limited Scope Traditional tools provide a narrow lens on company performance. They tell us what happened but not what’s happening right now. For example, earnings reports give insights into past performance, but they don’t reflect real-time shifts in consumer behavior, which can be a critical indicator of future growth. By relying on these tools alone, investors may miss emerging trends that could affect stock performance in the near future.

Market Noise News headlines and analyst opinions are often subject to market noise. What the media reports or what analysts predict might not always align with the underlying consumer data driving company success or failure. This over-reliance on noise can lead to reactionary decisions based on incomplete or misleading information.

The Rise of Data-Driven Investing

In contrast, data-driven investing focuses on real-time data and trends to help investors stay ahead of the market. By leveraging a variety of sources, including consumer spending patterns, search engine data, and social media trends, data-driven strategies provide a more immediate and comprehensive view of company performance.

Here’s why data-driven investing is gaining traction:

Real-time insights Instead of waiting for delayed reports, data-driven investing taps into real-time information about consumer behavior, allowing investors to make faster, more informed decisions. For example, an increase in consumer spending at a particular retailer or a surge in interest in a tech company’s new product can indicate potential stock gains before earnings reports or analyst upgrades hit the news.

Actionable predictive data Data-driven strategies are often powered by predictive analytics, which use algorithms to forecast future trends. This means investors can not only see what’s happening today but also get a clearer picture of where the market may be headed, allowing for more proactive decision-making.

Broader data sources Instead of relying solely on earnings reports and analyst ratings, data-driven strategies pull from a wide variety of data sources, everything from credit card spending to social sentiment, to paint a fuller picture of what’s happening in the market right now.

Signals was built to bridge the gap between traditional investment tools and modern data-driven strategies

We recognized that everyday investors were at a disadvantage, lacking access to the same real-time data that hedge funds and institutional players have been using for years. That’s why we created Signals, to give you the tools to make smarter, faster investment decisions based on real-time consumer data.

Here’s how Signals is transforming the way modern investors approach the market:

Real-Time Consumer Spending Data Signals taps into the spending patterns of over 25 million credit and debit cards, giving you a window into real-time consumer behavior. This data helps you spot trends before they become mainstream, giving you the edge to act early, whether it’s going long on a retail stock based on early holiday spending or exiting a position in a struggling company before disappointing earnings.

Ticker Scores to Simplify Decisions We know that data can be overwhelming, which is why we use ticker scores to simplify the insights. Our proprietary algorithms analyze the real-time data and give each stock a score, indicating how likely it is to perform based on current consumer trends. With Signals, you don’t have to spend hours sifting through data, our platform does the heavy lifting for you.

Stay Ahead of the Market Signals helps you spot early trends in consumer spending, giving you the chance to adjust your portfolio before the rest of the market catches up. By providing real-time insights and predictive data, Signals ensures that you’re always ahead of the curve, not reacting to it.

Our proprietary C-Score methodology is a key feature of Signals, offering a simple yet powerful metric for evaluating ticker performance.

Our rating system assigns a score to each ticker, ranging from -100 (Bearish) to +100 (Bullish), helping investors quickly assess potential investment opportunities.

• C-Score Scale: The score ranges from -100 to +100, where a positive score indicates bullish sentiment and a negative score reflects bearish sentiment.
• Threshold for Action: Tickers with C-Scores greater than +70 (Bullish) or -70 (Bearish) are automatically added to your Signals Dashboard.
• Other Factors: C-Scores incorporate a range of data points, including consumer spending trends from our panel of 25 million credit and debit cards, market estimates, and analyst consensus, to provide a well-rounded and reliable indicator of ticker performance.

Conclusion: The Future of Investing is Data-Driven

In today’s fast-paced markets, traditional investment tools just don’t cut it. Investors need real-time data, predictive insights, and a competitive edge to stay ahead. Signals offers all of that and more, empowering everyday investors with the same kind of insights that hedge funds and Wall Street firms rely on.

Don’t settle for delayed information. Join the waitlist for Signals today and be part of the data-driven investing revolution.