11. Special datasets

Special datasets

Drug trials, lawsuits, contracts, hiring and other signals.

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  • 8 lessons
  • 32 min
About this chapter

This chapter covers the unusual datasets that analysts use to see what the standard numbers miss: drug safety reports and clinical trials, lawsuits and regulators' letters, government contracts, hiring and app-store signals, supply chains and portfolio exposure, infrastructure projects, and full-text search across calls, news and filings.

What you will be able to do

  • Read drug and device adverse-event reports and search clinical trials, with their limits.
  • Follow a company's litigation and the SEC's comment letters.
  • Read government awards to a company and how much of its revenue they represent.
  • Read hiring momentum and app rankings as signals of business activity.
  • Trace customers and suppliers several steps away, and a portfolio's exposure to a scenario.
  • Explore infrastructure projects and search transcripts, news and filings by keyword.

How the chapter is built

Diagram: Health: FDA, TRIAL leads to Evidence you can open; Legal: LITI, CLTR leads to Evidence you can open; Government money: AWARDS leads to Evidence you can open; Activity signals: JOBS, HIRE, APPS leads to Evidence you can open; Links: SPLC, EXPO, TBO leads to Evidence you can open; Search: SRCH leads to Evidence you can open.

Five words to know before starting

alternative data
data beyond prices and financial statements that hints at a business's activity
evidence
the document and sentence a data point came from
coverage
which companies, countries or periods a dataset includes
signal
a change in data that may say something about a company
preview
the first rows of a Pro dataset shown on the free plan
  1. 01Drug safety reports and clinical trials (FDA, TRIAL)FDA searches public US reports of drug and device side effects and drug recalls, and TRIAL searches the public registry of clinical studies.4 min
  2. 02Litigation and SEC comment letters (LITI, CLTR)LITI lists a company's lawsuits, enforcement and antitrust cases with their documents and dated status, and CLTR lists the letters SEC staff sent the company about its filings and the replies.4 min
  3. 03Government contracts and awards (AWARDS)AWARDS collects published government contracts from the US, Europe, the UK and elsewhere, matches recipients to listed companies, and shows each award with its value and evidence.4 min
  4. 04Hiring signals (JOBS, HIRE)JOBS reads one company's open roles over time from its own careers site, and HIRE compares hiring momentum across companies.4 min
  5. 05App store rankings (APPS)APPS tracks where a listed company's apps rank on public app-store charts by country and chart, with ratings and an overall attention score.4 min
  6. 06Supply chains and scenario exposure (SPLC, EXPO)SPLC maps a company's customers, suppliers, competitors and investees from filings, announcements and calls with evidence, and EXPO estimates a portfolio's exposure to a shock along those links.4 min
  7. 07The AI infrastructure map (TBO)TBO opens a partner's research database on the physical build-out of AI and semiconductors: curated lists of companies by niche, physical sites, and dated research notes.3 min
  8. 08Searching calls, news and filings (SRCH)SRCH searches earnings-call transcripts, news and SEC filings at once and shows every passage that matches your phrase, with saved searches that alert you to new matches.3 min

Educational material about reading market data, not investment advice.