For those working in the stock market, reports and analytics are critical to making the right decision on which stocks to invest in. And on this week’s The Disruptors, one startup has found its niche in an area dominated by companies like Bloomberg.
Q4 Web Systems provides stock market data and analysis for its customers, and boasts clients like McDonald’s and Visa. Its platform allows users to manage, report, and understand their engagement with the capital markets.
Co-host Amber Kanwar sat down with CEO Darrell Heaps to talk about what attracted clients to Q4’s platform. “As a CFO, one of the things you really want to know is, what is the street pricing into your stock, and what are the expectations going into some significant corporate event like earnings,” Heaps said. “Our analytics help provide forward-looking information in terms of sentiment, forward-looking volatility, and activism.”
Kanwar noted that she could easily go to Reuters, Bloomberg, or S&P Capital to find out what analysts are expecting—and wondered what Q4 is doing differently. “It really isn’t about the analysts and the research, because that’s very broadly available,” said Heaps. “What we look at is the overall market and the universe of data that’s available both in terms of the options market and the equities market.”
With a team of data scientists and a system of algorithms, Heaps said Q4 is about “what the money is saying,” rather than what analysts are saying or what the research report is saying. With 600 customers, Kanwar wondered what that kind of growth was like.
“It’s not easy. I think it’s like in any startup; being ignorant is blissful,” said Heaps. “The significant growth has come from the US. We’ve been growing year over year for the last three years, and we see enormous opportunity in front of us.”
Watch the full interview below:
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