github engineering momentum
What it checks
When a company's engineering activity on GitHub accelerates (more commits, more stars), the stock tends to outperform over the following 1-6 months.
Mechanism
On software-as-the-product companies (DDOG/MDB/NET/SNOW/HCP/GTLB/...), accelerating commit and star activity on the company's open-source repos predicts 1-6 month forward returns. Two-leg z-score on commits_30d and stars-delta over 252d.
Signal rule
Either leg (commits_30d_total z-score OR stars_total delta z-score over 252d) crosses z>=1.0/1.5 -> long 21/63/126d hold. Targeted to ~50 mapped corporate GitHub orgs.
Data dependencies
daily_pricesAdjusted-close OHLCV for every US-listed ticker; primary price feed.
github_repo_metricsWorker data table, see services/worker schema.
Expected edge
- Paper alpha
- 3-5%/yr
- Paper window
- 2015-2022
3-5%/yr top decile (Saunders et al.).
Example tickers where this is likely to fire
Illustrative only, the signal fires based on the live data, not a fixed list.
Related families
patent innovation premiumAlt-DataPatent values inferred from 3-day stock reaction to USPTO grant. Firms with high value of recently granted patents (relative to market cap) outperform by ~3-5%/yr β real options on growth the market under-prices until citations validate.
trademark filing velocityInnovation / PatentsPublic companies file trademarks ahead of product launches and brand expansions; intent-to-use (1B) filings are especially predictive because they require the applicant to declare bona fide intent within 6-36 months. Rolling 30-day count of intent-to-use filings per ticker is z-scored over a 252-day window; spikes predict 1-3 month forward returns of 1-3% annualized.
Explore github engineering momentum on alphactor.ai
See which tickers this family is currently firing on, with live signals and rankings.