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Skills Development Is Key If Firms Are To Make Best Use Of Alternative Data

The Horizons Tracker

While this can indeed be expensive to do in the short-term, it is beneficial in the long-term as data sellers were then able to provide firms with bigger data samples, which in turn allowed firms to infer more accurately the future prospects of the assets under consideration.

Hedge 119
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Finally, Proof That Managing for the Long Term Pays Off

Harvard Business Review

Companies deliver superior results when executives manage for long-term value creation and resist pressure from analysts and investors to focus excessively on meeting Wall Street’s quarterly earnings expectations. We’ve seen companies such as Unilever, AT&T, and Amazon succeed by sticking resolutely to a long-term view.

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Private Equity Can Make Firms More Innovative

Harvard Business Review

If you ask someone who works in finance (as I had to) about PE and innovation, he or she will likely tell you that PE sponsors aren’t looking for the next big thing—they’re looking for companies that are dominant in a market, aren’t risky, and have a predictable and steady stream of cash to pay back debt.

LBO 8
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Research: The Digitization of Banks Disproportionately Hurts Women Entrepreneurs

Harvard Business Review

In Sweden, for example, the portion of approved bank loans to small and medium-size enterprises has decreased by 15% over the last 10 years , and roughly 60% of all ventures in need of external financing have reported difficulties in accessing financing for their investments.

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Big Data and Machine Learning Won’t Save Us from Another Financial Crisis

Harvard Business Review

Like today, finance in the 1990s and early 2000s attracted many of the sharpest quantitative minds, who produced remarkable theoretical and methodological advances. Furthermore, foundational underpinnings of quantitative finance — for example, elementary logical bounds on the prices of securities — broke down.

Crisis 8
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What Would Happen if the U.S. Stopped Requiring Quarterly Earnings Reports?

Harvard Business Review

Over the years, I have heard from plenty of managers who have lamented that the pressure of quarterly earnings targets imposes a heavy toll on their ability to focus on the long term. Hence, getting rid of quarterly reporting is unlikely to mitigate corporate short-termism. Frequent reporting increases analysts’ accuracy.

Report 8
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Many CEOs Aren’t Breakthrough Innovators (and That’s OK)

Harvard Business Review

Innovation is widely regarded as important to long-term business performance. We’ve found that CEOs of big pharmaceutical companies, for example, are more likely to have a background as company lawyers, salespeople, or finance managers, than one in medicine or pharmaceutical R&D. Pharmaceuticals.

CEO 8