Point72 Used Big Data to Short Weight Watchers, Dave & Buster's
- Steve Cohen’s fund no longer holds the short bets, person says
- Hedge fund has trained its traditional managers to use data
Customers play skee ball at a Dave & Buster's.
Photographer: Timothy Fadek/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Big data gave Point72 Asset Management a fresh view into Dave & Buster’s Entertainment Inc. -- and a reason to short the chain.
Combing through geo-location data linked to anonymous credit card information, the hedge fund discovered that when customers went to entertainment venue Topgolf for the first time, their spending at a nearby Dave & Buster’s went down immediately, Matthew Granade, who oversees Point72’s big data efforts, said at the CNBC Delivering Alpha conference Thursday.