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Posted by u/giantg2 4 years ago
Ask HN: A Good Idea?
What if I built a system that correlates ADS-B tracking of helicopters around Wall Street and the major news stories, then compared that with historical trends. Using this data to predict what big moves/problems could be coming? Obviously this would miss smaller things, but could be useful for off-hours sensitive meetings. Almost like the Twitter sentiment tracker, but for the Wall Street executives.

No idea if this would work. Good idea?

zinglersen · 4 years ago
The thinking is good but no one can verify the idea for you.

Travel data is an interesting data point for a lot of financial analysis, just to name a few:

- Hedge funds are tracking private jets to find the next-megadeal.

- Hedge funds are tracking frequency of delivery trucks going in and out of factories.

- Hedge funds are analyzing satellite images of parking spots outside of Walmart.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-02/hedge-fun...

mettamage · 4 years ago
I wish I could work for a hedge fund, and do these type of fun things. As a European it seems quite difficult to find an in or to know where an in is.
giantg2 · 4 years ago
I feel like there are very few positions available like that. Even here in the US I know I could never get into something like that.
giantg2 · 4 years ago
Very cool. Thanks for the info. Based on that I assume this is a non-viable idea. If they know about it for offense, then they will likely be including it as part of their defense (conceal their own movements).
warrenm · 4 years ago
Doesn't mean the idea is "non-viable"

In fact, it may be precisely the opposite: that it (or something cloesly akin) is being used already generally validates the basic principles of any given "idea"

thebenedict · 4 years ago
I did light research into a similar idea, and got stuck linking aircraft registration numbers from ADS-B to businesses. Many aircraft owned by corporations and high net worth individuals are registered to subsidiaries or holding companies. I wasn't able to follow the chain of registrations through opencorporates.com.

I probably didn't exhaust all possibilities -- wonder if this is a solved problem.

xsmasher · 4 years ago
Reminds me of the Washington Pizza Index: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clint...
walterlb · 4 years ago
OT, but this era of WP website was quite nice looking and readable. Refreshing!
hmitrea · 4 years ago
Really unique idea , love the concept. Could be a fun bot that could do that. Looking at https://globe.adsbexchange.com/ you see some helicopters downtown Manhattan
sjg007 · 4 years ago
You won't know until you do the analysis but given Zoom and conference calls I suspect that the majority of these things happen remotely.
giantg2 · 4 years ago
Yeah, I thought this would be good for crashes only, when the subject might be too sensitive to have on a call.

I probably won't build it or even do analysis on it. But maybe I'll look into it if there aren't any issues that other find with the idea.

keiferski · 4 years ago
This is sort of a plot point in the TV show Billions. IIRC, they track private jets and figure out that one company is about to acquire another.
Raed667 · 4 years ago
too bad the quality dropped so much in the last season.

the one that stoodout in stupidity for me was that one company that was supposed to be sharing their extra wifi to the public for free whnen not mining crypto currencies or something like taht...

giantg2 · 4 years ago
Interesting
runjake · 4 years ago
I don’t know.

I’d have to see an MVP, first. Build one.

This isn’t meant as a smarmy answer — I’d be in the target market, but I can’t give you a useful answer with nothing but an idea.

Nextgrid · 4 years ago
I wouldn't be surprised if it's already done.