Using alt data at SMs

In some cases you’re right, in other cases they have the mandate flexibility to use different data in ways not available to MMs - for example, in names which don’t fit MM mandates, for directional niche subsector alpha or ideas with longer horizons or more up-front / expensive work that only makes sense to do where one can concentrate more or withstand more vol

Just like with qualitative data like expert calls - there are opportunities for creative and divergent approaches. I think people who say ‘alt data’ isn’t useful or requires substantial institutional resources to utilize are really referencing only the commoditized / pre-packaged / broadly followed ‘alt data’. Naturally - if everyone knows and uses something, there’s little alpha to extract. Data is info. There’s alot of info in the world. Only some of it is broadly used and competitive. There are no free lunches, but getting alpha out of data everyone knows about is a matter of brute force / resources - finding different data or using data differently is another way to extract alpha. It is a different challenge - but entirely viable