Company Events & EarningsExtended setInvalidNew

Corporate-Jet Merger Signal

Updated dailyData needs: mediumlong only

2020

Akey, P., Heimer, R. (2020). "Why do executives have so many flight benefits?" *Journal of Financial Economics* (working paper / SSRN). Jiang, F., Habib, A., Hou, X., Liu, M. (2020). "Executive private jets and corporate fraud." *Review of Financial Studies* (working paper).

Citation only, paper link pending.

In plain terms

If multiple companies' corporate jets land at the same airport within 48 hours and yours is one of them, an M&A is likely brewing. We buy the target's stock and hold for two to four weeks.

How it works

When >=2 distinct corporate jets (candidate acquirer + target) land at the same metropolitan/regional airport within a rolling 48h window, the pattern statistically precedes an M&A announcement leak. The single-jet "unusual destination" effect from Bao-Edmans 2023 (#201) is complemented here by a multi-party clustering rule on the same source data.

Live results

0 times picked on its own · 1 times inside a blend (1 beat the stock) · updated 2026-07-06

This strategy is a frequent ingredient in blends that combine a few strategies on one stock. It has contributed to 1 such blended picks (1 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)

Loading substrate evidence…

Data dependencies

Daily prices
Adjusted-close OHLCV for every US-listed ticker; primary price feed.
Corporate jet flights
Corporate-jet flight history derived from OpenSky/ADSB sources and mapped to tickers.

Expected edge

Reported return: 1-3% / event (target untested)
Tested over: T+0 to T+30d

Akey-Heimer 2020 documents 1-3% abnormal acquirer returns over 30d on multi-jet co-presence; target-side capture untested.

Example tickers where this is likely to fire

MSFT GOOGL META AAPL AMZN JPM GS

Illustrative only, the signal fires based on the live data, not a fixed list.

Related families

Corporate Jet DestinationsReal-World & Alternative Data

Corporate jet flies to unusual city → possible M&A coming.

Merger ArbitrageCompany Events & Earnings

When a ticker files an 8-K signaling an M&A deal, the stock drifts directionally for 1-3 months as the market re-rates it.

Explore Corporate-Jet Merger Signal on alphactor.ai

See which tickers this family is currently firing on, with live signals and rankings.

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