​​On the heels of the most recent stock market collapse that shocked investors with extreme volatility, CrowdThnk has launched an investment research platform measuring stock market positioning. CrowdThnk will help stock market investors avoid market crashes by identifying crowded, popular trades that are susceptible to a sell-off. In addition, this new data service will provide stock market investors unique insights to forecast future market movements and gain a competitive edge in markets.

Using a simple 0 to 10 scale, CrowdThnk measures the relative crowdedness of a stock ranging from extremely underweight (short) to extremely overweight (long) positioning. In addition, premium members receive access to probability-weighted market forecasts based upon this positioning data. Among other factors, crowded positions in popular stocks such as Amazon, Netflix and Facebook contributed to the severe drop in equity prices that saw the market sell-off over 12% in recent weeks as investors rushed to the exits, an event CrowdThnk had forewarned about.

“Oftentimes, crowded trades follow a price trajectory of ‘up the escalator, down the elevator’ as everybody seeks to exit a popular stock at the same time, particularly if negative news is involved,” says CrowdThnk CEO and Co-Founder, Hans Kullberg. “Figuring out how crowded a trade may be has been a blind spot for many investors and we hope to illuminate this important, difficult-to-quantify factor in a straightforward way using crowdsourced data. Our positioning signals were forewarning an imminent sell-off.”

Market positioning metrics for financial securities are abstract and hard to define as equity research analysts still subjectively analyze disparate positioning reports. By using a combination of crowdsourced positioning and public data, CrowdThnk’s proprietary algorithm measures and quantifies this market-moving factor that has heretofore been difficult to assess. Whereas many competitors aggregate sentiment data, CrowdThnk’s team of Hedge Fund veterans and machine learning experts focus on quantifying actual positions which move markets to a greater extent than simple market attitudes.

“The recent stock market collapse was, in part, driven by an extremely crowded market that saw investors get in over their skis,” says Qiwei Shi, co-founder and Chief Scientist. “Not only have we identified these ‘anti-fragile’ situations, but we provide analytics learned through positioning behavior that gives investors an edge to forecast the future.”

About CrowdThnk (www.crowdthnk.com)

CrowdThnk measures & quantifies stock market consensus positioning to provide clients with data-driven insights and actionable analytics. Using crowdsourced data and Big Data, CrowdThnk aggregates & assesses consensus market positioning while using machine learning and pattern recognition to forecast future market direction for over 500 stocks. CrowdThnk’s process is built to help investors achieve a market edge and boost investment performance by harnessing the wisdom of crowds.

Media Contact Information:

info@crowdthnk.com