Investors have used real-time data that track movements in market and economic sentiment for years as a supplement to traditional indicators such as purchasing managers indexes and national statistics. In the Covid-19 environment, these high-frequency alternative data are playing a much bigger role in anticipating market movements. The pandemic has sent markets lower and then higher with unprecedented swiftness, leaving investors who waited for official figures in the dust.

High-frequency data have become indispensable in detecting labour market and consumer sentiment trends. These two segments of the economy had been driving growth before the pandemic and were then hit hardest. Aviral Utkarsh, multi-asset strategist at NN Investment Partners, explains in our latest Market Talk podcast how high-frequency alternative data have become part of our investment process and what this information is telling us now.