For most traders, the world of investing revolves around traditional strategies like buying undervalued stocks, selling overvalued ones, and trying to profit from price fluctuations. However, a small subset of investors takes things in a very different direction, utilizing techniques that can only be described as unusual and unconventional. From profiting off of memes and viral trends to arbitraging tiny price discrepancies across markets, these traders aren’t afraid to buck convention in their endless pursuit of profits.
The Meme Traders
It was once unthinkable that a silly internet meme could move billion-dollar companies and whole sectors. But in today’s hyper-connected world of social media, the unthinkable has become reality. A new breed of retail traders have emerged, mobilizing on forums like Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets to collectively pump meme stocks to astronomical levels through coordinated buying frenzies.
The GameStop saga in early 2021 was perhaps the most famous example, with shares of the struggling gaming retailer rising over 1,700% at one point as WallStreetBets members piled in. While most institutional investors scoffed at the mania, calling it senseless gambling, a handful of savvy meme traders managed to book millions in profits by getting in early and reading the crowd sentiment correctly.
“With meme stocks, you have to understand the social dynamics and psychology at play,” says Jaime Rogozinski, founder of the WallStreetBets subreddit. “It’s about constantly taking the pulse of the community, seeing which stocks are gaining traction as the next hot target.”
Of course, the extreme volatility and unpredictability of meme trades makes them an incredibly risky game even for the most experienced investors. But some meme masters have refined their approach, utilizing deep data analysis of social media trends and deploying disciplined trading and risk management techniques to profit off the mania while limiting downsides.
Arbitraging “Microscopic” Price Gaps
At the opposite end of the spectrum from meme stock madness are ultra-disciplined arbitrageurs who seek to profit from even the slightest pricing inefficiencies and discrepancies across different markets. Using lightning-fast trading systems and algorithms, they quickly identify and pounce on these tiny windows of opportunity to earn small, but virtually risk-free profits.
One such unusual arbitrage strategy revolves around exploiting minuscule pricing gaps between U.S. equity and futures markets. The basic premise is that individual stocks and their associated futures contracts should trade in lockstep, tracking each other’s prices nearly identically. Even momentary divergences in pricing present an arbitrage opportunity to simultaneously buy the cheaper security and sell the more expensive one, capturing a tiny but risk-free spread.
“We’re talking about extremely short-lived, microscopic pricing gaps measured in fractional cents,” explains Robert Almgren, professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of Chicago and former managing director at Renaissance Technologies. “But if we can identify and exploit enough of them through high-speed trading algorithms, the arbitrage profits can really start to compound.”
This type of arbitrage relies on rapidly crunching vast data feeds and engaging in precisely choreographed trades of stocks and futures in fractions of a second before the pricing gaps inevitably close. Pulling it off at scale requires mastering cutting-edge quantitative trading models and devising ultra-efficient execution strategies.
Some critics have accused these high-speed arbitrageurs of exploiting unfair technological advantages and frontrunning other investors’ orders. But proponents argue they provide an important service by enhancing market liquidity and keeping prices aligned across all trading venues.
Capitalizing on Human Experiences
Yet another highly unconventional trading approach seeks to emulate not complex algorithms but the gut instincts and real-world experiences of everyday people in specific professions and situations. The basic premise is that certain professionals may have valuable perspectives on consumer and business trends that could impact publicly traded companies.
One trend-spotting hedge fund run by a former anthropologist, for example, employs a network of cab drivers across major cities as informal field researchers. The thinking is that cabbies are uniquely tuned into evolving consumer habits by constantly interacting with their fares and intimately knowing different neighborhoods. Their on-the-ground observations on changing traffic patterns, new hot spots emerging, and consumer spending tendencies serve as real-time signals that can uncover valuable investment insights.
Similarly, other funds have hired doctors, scientists, engineers, and others immersed in specialized fields as a way to gain potential early-mover insights on promising new technologies, medical treatments, or other innovations. By tapping into these professionals’ domain expertise and frontline experiences, the funds hope to identify overlooked opportunities for investment well before Wall Street catches on.
“We’re looking beyond just crunching financial data and numbers,” explains Julia Bonafede, president of Rosetta Analytics, a firm that connects investors directly with subject matter experts. “There are human elements and qualitative insights that can provide tremendous investing edges, if you know where to look.”
Of course, extracting reliable, non-public information from experts by scouring their social media posts, blogs, and other channels raises compliance concerns around insider trading. Proponents insist they are simply finding novel ways to gain differentiated perspectives on industries and companies — something fundamental to any active investment process.
While these strategies may sound unusual, they are part of a broader investing zeitgeist of searching for untapped, alternative data sources to gain informational edges over rivals. From mining satellite imagery and GPS data to employing web-scraping programs, investors are increasingly looking well beyond traditional datasets and financial models to fuel their strategies. And as markets grow ever more institutionalized and competitive, expect even more ingenious and creative techniques to emerge as investors chase those elusive excess returns.