Economy & PolicyExtended setexperimental liveNew
Acled Protest Consumer Short
Updated dailyData needs: lowshort only
paper
2019
Source
Yang, S. & Yu, X. (2019). "Civil unrest, retail traffic, and consumer behavior." Journal of Business & Economic Statistics (working paper extension).
Read the paper →
In plain terms
When US protest activity spikes, brick-and-mortar consumer retailers see foot-traffic drop — short the basket for 1-3 months.
How it works
US protest event clusters predict near-term foot-traffic + revenue declines for consumer-discretionary retailers in affected regions.
Live results
0 times picked on its own · 4 times inside a blend (4 beat the stock) · updated 2026-06-06This strategy is a frequent ingredient in blends that combine a few strategies on one stock. It has contributed to 4 such blended picks (4 of which beat simply holding the stock). Picking it on its own is only one of the ways it shows up.
How its picks scored vs. buy & hold
Each pick is graded on a recent year it was never tuned on, against simply owning the same stock
Where its edge concentrates
Share of picks in each company-size group that beat buy & hold
How often it trades
Active vs. patient. Bars on the left mean it waits for rare setups; bars on the right mean it trades often
Return vs. buy & hold
How much each pick beat or trailed simply owning the stock over the test year (extreme microcap moves trimmed)
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Data dependencies
- Daily prices
Adjusted-close OHLCV for every US-listed ticker; primary price feed.
- Acled events
A data feed this strategy reads, refreshed on its normal schedule.
Expected edge
- Reported return
- -1 to -3% over 60d
- Tested over
- 30/60/90d
-1 to -3% over 60d on civil-unrest clusters.
Example tickers where this is likely to fire
Illustrative only, the signal fires based on the live data, not a fixed list.
Related families
Explore Acled Protest Consumer Short on alphactor.ai
See which tickers this family is currently firing on, with live signals and rankings.