September 2026 AI & Alt Data Roundup
September was a tough month for discretionary managers and a strong one for the machines. The Fed raised rates for the first time since 2023, the Iran war pushed oil higher, and the 10-year Treasury yield climbed to its highest level since 2002, while sharp swings in AI stocks whipsawed equity books.
Fundamental long/short funds finished slightly down, but systematic and trend-following strategies had their best month of the year. We'll unpack what this regime shift means for data buyers at BattleFin Discovery Day New York on October 29th.
BattleFin will be showcasing our new Alt Data Consensus platform (think Visible Alpha-S&P but ADC leverages Alt Data for the estimates instead of sell-side analysts). This offering allows data providers to approach the long tail investment community of over 15,000 funds and acts as 3rd party verification that your data truly has a signal. Data Providers can Lean More About ADC Here.
We'll also be showcasing our new Exabel Knowledge Graph offering which enables faster trials, lower integration and maintenance, point in time research and agentic testing.
BattleFin London Event Recap
The BattleFin Team just got back from a record breaking conference at the Chancery Rosewood, Mayfair (the old US Embassy). We had amazing turnout, the content sessions were much appreciated, and the networking opportunities priceless. The positive feedback we got from all our clients made our day. Here’s a brief recap of the event:
BattleFin Discovery Day London, themed "Leveraging Alt Data in an AI-Driven World," highlighted how frontier AI models are rapidly transitioning from simple chat tools into autonomous research agents and "Chief of Staff" assistants across investment workflows.
Key industry presentations showcased advanced alternative datasets—such as Kpler’s refiner earnings forecasting, JATO’s automotive retail insights, and S&P Global’s analysis of a historic $5.3 trillion capex supercycle among top tech firms—while recurring panel discussions emphasized that while AI drastically compresses data clean-up, coding, and signal generation, human judgment, rigorous post-cost testing, and domain expertise remain critical to maintaining a true investment edge.
Buy Side Performance & News
Global fundamental equity long/short funds lost 0.55% on average in September, according to Goldman Sachs Prime Services, though they still beat the MSCI World Index, which fell 1.3%. Systematic equity long/short funds rose 3.46%, their best month of 2026, and the Société Générale Trend Index gained more than 4% on short fixed income and long energy positions. Morgan Stanley data showed global hedge funds down about 0.2% through September 25, with Asia-focused funds lagging at -0.6%. Goldman's desk saw net selling across most US equity sectors, with a sharp split inside tech: electronic equipment and hardware were sold while semiconductor equipment and software were bought.
SS&C GlobeOp's Hedge Fund Performance Index flash estimate came in at +0.83% for September, taking year-to-date returns to 8.63% (14.9% over the trailing 12 months). Going into the month, Citco reported a 1.4% weighted-average return for August, led by commodities (+4.2%) and global macro (+3.9%), with event-driven the only negative strategy (-1.9%). That lifted Citco's year-to-date figure to 11.3%. August net inflows were $10.3bn, bringing 2026 inflows to $99.7bn, well ahead of 2025's full-year total of $62.2bn. Multi-strategy funds took $6.7bn in August and $57.1bn year to date, and funds over $10bn have captured $77bn of this year's flows.
Citadel's Wellington fund rose 1.1% in September (+13.4% YTD) and Citadel Equities gained 1% (+24.5% YTD). Millennium finished the month flat. Bridgewater's Pure Alpha is up 18.4% through nine months, and systematic managers Winton and Graham are up about 17% and 31% YTD, respectively.
Taula Capital's newly launched, concentrated TSO fund fell more than 12% in September after positioning for lower European rates just as the global bond rout took hold. Hedge funds unwinding crowded trades helped drive the French bond sell-off, and the Bank of England warned about spillover risk from elevated hedge fund leverage in gilts.
Castle Hook Partners agreed to pay up to $21.2m a year for a Madison Avenue penthouse, believed to be the highest office rent ever recorded in New York.
New Fund Launches
Windrise Capital, from Hao Dong, a former commodity portfolio manager at Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, is preparing to launch as a commodities and global markets hedge fund, targeting $200m-300m.
Closures and Redemptions
The SS&C GlobeOp Forward Redemption Indicator for September came in at 2.02%, up from 1.64% in August but below the 2.21% reported a year earlier, in line with seasonal patterns. The indicator hit its all-time low of 1.26% in April 2026.
New Product Launches
CMG added Private Investments in Public Equity (PIPEs) and Registered Directs (RDs) data to CMG DataLab. Private-placement terms such as warrant coverage and pricing, discount to market, security type, registration timelines and deal-specific flags have usually been scattered across SEC filings and press releases. DataLab now shows 20+ years of US PIPE and RD history alongside each issuer's IPOs, follow-ons, ATMs and converts, in the same issuer profiles and through the same API schema. That gives event-driven and quant teams a complete view of an issuer's capital-raising history in one place.
Alt Data Consensus: A new product that maps, tags and standardises datasets from multiple vendors into an actionable consensus number. Data Providers can now get in front of Long Tail investment managers and hedge funds that don't have large data evaluation resources.
Data providers gain third-party performance verification and sales leads with no revenue share. Buyers can track vendor performance before they buy.
Cuts data onboarding from months to weeks with pre-mapped, compliance-checked data.
Data Providers can learn more HERE.
CredoIQ is previewing Executive Interview Intelligence, now in limited beta ahead of its official launch on stage at BattleFin Discovery Day New York on October 29th. The product captures executive interviews on TV, YouTube, and podcasts within 30 minutes of airing, each one tickerized, separated by speaker, and scored for sentiment and reach. For an early look, see CredoIQ's Starbucks case study, which pairs CEO interviews with TikTok purchase-intent data to show management calling the turnaround months before the market caught on. Full details at the launch; beta access is available now.
Note: CredoIQ joins All Ears, Context Analytics and Particle (August) in the fast-growing spoken-word intelligence space. CredoIQ focuses specifically on executive interviews on TV and podcasts, scored for sentiment and reach.
Guideline – New Product Release: Signal: a new product built on ~$168bn of US agency ad spend. It delivers monthly KPI forecasts (e.g. Amazon ad revenue), 2–3 months of forward bookings, 98 subcategories and CPM pricing.
Data News & Insights
Lord Data published Starlink Migration Intelligence, a graded behavioral study built on 15.77 billion browsing events from a 30-month global clickstream panel. It scores cable customers' migration pressure toward Starlink and ranks exposure by provider and ticker, with Frontier, now owned by Verizon, the most exposed in all six quarters. It also introduces a monthly Starlink churn-watch series that appears in no public filing. Six directional calls were frozen on July 9, before Comcast, Charter, Verizon and T-Mobile reported Q2.
The result was four hits, one partial and one miss, and the report publishes all six. Lord Data flagged Charter as the most exposed cable name: Charter's losses then accelerated to 172,000 and its shares fell about 12% on the print. Lord Data calls the signal coincident rather than leading, but it reads the pressure weeks before operators report. The report includes an 11-item limitations register and four calls frozen for Q3.
Upcoming Events
BattleFin Discovery Day New York — Fall 2026 — October 29, 2026 | New York Athletic Club. The most important alt data and AI-focused event for financial investors and corporate brands, featuring content panels, curated one-on-one meetings, and networking.
BattleFin Discovery Day Miami 2027 — January 20–22, 2027 | Nobu Eden Roc, Miami. The Year Ahead in Alternative Data and AI.
Contact us at info@battlefin.com if you would like to contribute to this newsletter or need more info on any of above.