Money 2.0 Stuff: 1 in 5 Millennials prefers Bitcoin to...gold?

When it comes to building a market edge, investment funds have several tools at their disposal. High frequency trading firms invest heavily in financial data and servers, allowing them to formulate and execute profitable trades before competitors. Macro hedge funds look to synthesize both quantitative data and qualitative analysis in order to inform outlooks on the relative strength and weaknesses of a nation’s economy. Venture funds build deal flow through their sprawling networks.

The common thread tying these seemingly disparate investment strategies together is the use of surveys. Perhaps the most high profile use of surveys in recent times came from the Brexit Big Short, where several hedge funds hired international polling firm, YouGov, among others, to conduct private exit-polling on the results of the UK referendum to leave the European Union. With exit-polling data only available for public release after the polls had closed, these funds were able to build sizeable Sterling short positions, profiting handsomely from the chaos that ensued once the rest of the market came to realize that voters had, surprisingly, actually cast their ballots in favour of ‘self-sovereignty’.