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Fund managers deploy machines to decipher British election riddle

Demand from investors has spawned a raft of companies selling various brands of data analysis. U.S.-based Predata, for example, applies machine-learning algorithms to web traffic data to generate indicators that it sells to financial customers.

The company, which studies the sources and scale of traffic rather than content, said analysis in early November showed a spike in research into new voter registrations in Britain.

This was driven by people browsing on phones, rather than computers – with the mobile-based traffic four times higher than at a similar point before the 2017 election.

“One assumption we can make is, this is generally associated with a younger audience,” said Eric Falcon, Predata’s director of research.