COMMANDER DATA COAST GUARD VETERAN SCOTT BORGERSON AND HIS TEAM OF QUANTS ARE USING SATELLITE INTEL ON SHIPS TO IDENTIFY MISPRICED SECURITIES

摘要

One late afternoon last november, as a ping-pong game echoed through the floor at Cargo-Metrics Technologies' Boston office, CEO Scott Borgerson was watching over the shoulder of Arturo Ramos, who's responsible for developing investment strategies with astrophysicist Ronnie Hoogerwerf. At Ramos's feet sat Helios, his brindle pit-bull-and-greyhound mix. All three men were staring at a computer screen, tracking satellite signals from oil tankers sailing through the Strait of Malacca, the choke point between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea where 40 percent of the world's cargo trade moves by ship. CargoMetrics, a start-up investment firm, is not your typical money manager or hedge fund. It was originally set up to supply information on cargo shipping to commodities traders, among others. Now it links satellite signals, historical shipping data and proprietary analytics for its own trading in commodities, currencies and equity index futures. There was an air of excitement in the office that day because the signals were continuing to show a slowdown in shipping that had earlier triggered the firm's automated trading system to short West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil futures. Two days later the U.S. Department of Energy's official report came out, confirming the firm's hunch, and the oil futures market reacted accordingly.