[nsebban]

Do they do that ? And why exactly do they do that ?

[mathperson]

I can pay for high resolution images of every walMart in the US- Use math- estimate foot traffic- estimate average sales per person- I can estimate profitability of Walmart. Let's say it's a good quarter. I buy a bunch of Walmart stock - they then disclose quarterly earnings- investors see the good numbers- the share price goes up. My position is long-I sell. Profit.

edit: obviously many steps of this process can use machine learning in general and deep learning in particular

[junkscience2017]

no you can't. take the absolute highest resolution images you can buy, and take 100 of the best mathematicians and using only maps you won't even be able to guess within 20%...analysts can already estimate within 1% of expected earnings

[forapurpose]

> take the absolute highest resolution images you can buy, and take 100 of the best mathematicians and using only maps you won't even be able to guess within 20%...

Why is that?

[cocoablazing]

Walmart’s last quarterly EPS beat analyst consensus by >3%, according to an aggregation by the WSJ.

[mathperson]

that example was more hypothetical of possible uses of satellite images. idk whether or not its too coarse to be a profitable signal

https://www.cnbc.com/id/38722872

[QML]

Wouldn’t it be easier to create an incentive for customers to directly give you data about where they shop? Like make an app that pulls up coupons specifically for Walmart..

[hu3]

For starters satelitte images can help infer crop farm size and health and use it as one of the many signals to predict corelated stocks.

[aaavl2821]

i think some firms buy analyses of imagery to predict oil market movements by looking at whether oil storage containers are empty or full. could probably imagine doing similar things in other commodities markets (corn etc)

[tigerBL00D]

Yes, but not necessarily to trade stocks. There is a more direct use of this data - to predict demand.

[aaavl2821]

not to trade stocks necessarily but to trade commodities