From the Financial Times:
Goldman Sachs leads $15m financing of data service for investors
Goldman Sachs has emerged as the largest investor in a financial analytics start-up that enables institutions to mine a wealth of big data, underscoring Wall Street’s drive to tap new technology.Goldman led a $15m round of financing in Kensho, an analytics platform that can instantly answer millions of complex financial questions by automating previously human-intensive research. The bank will roll out the platform across its business as well as to some of its big clients.
Kensho, which has been likened to a Siri-style service for investors, analysts and traders, enables them to ask questions such as, “What happens to US homebuilder stocks if a category three hurricane makes landfall?”
Analysts said Goldman was probably seeking to save on costs while also tapping into a wealth of so-called “unstructured” data. Such information involves text as opposed to the numeric “structured” data that have traditionally been easier for computers to digest.
Research scientists estimate that 80 per cent of all data come in unstructured form; being able to quickly analyse this wealth of information is the holy grail for banks seeking to use big data to augment their business.
“Wall Street historically was constrained to playing in the 20 per cent of data that move markets,” said Daniel Nadler, chief executive of Kensho. “Every Wall Street bank could only look at – with any real speed or automation – financial statistics: P/E ratios, and book value and market cap and similar things.”...MUCH MOREHurricanes? What the hell...
HT to and headline from: Business Insider.
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