The headline itself demonstrates ignorance as to what matters to an investor putting money on the table. 1. Sell-side analyst forecasts do not drive the invest

The headline itself demonstrates ignorance as to what matters to an investor putting money on the table. 1. Sell-side analyst forecasts do not drive the investment decisions of the more sophisticated investors. The sell-side is just a big marketing machine and the value-add of the analysis is very low at an individual stock level. 2. The model ‘beats’ the consensus forecast on a limited sample of names. By definition, the consensus forecast is an averaging out which leads to dilution of any one analyst’s alpha - hence it is not an appropriate benchmark. It is a naive approach and study, but typical of academics who unfortunately have little exposure to real-world investing/trading strategies. The use of ‘alternative data’ is not new and is definitely leading to alpha generation for some firms, but as mentioned by others such data-driven strategies will usually have limited shelf-life.