[vicchenai]

The quant fund use case is the most interesting angle here. WARN filings have the rare property of being legally mandated with specific timing (60-day advance notice), which makes the signal horizon predictable in a way that most alternative data is not.

The big caveat: compliance is uneven. Companies under 100 employees are exempt, and there is a documented pattern of employers paying WARN Act penalties retroactively rather than filing -- especially in fast-moving situations where 60 days advance notice is operationally inconvenient. So the signal has systematic gaps at exactly the moments of highest market interest.

Have you looked at coverage rates vs. announced layoffs (e.g., correlation with Challenger Gray reports or JOLTS)? That gap number is basically the signal noise floor for any quant strategy built on this data.

[sendkamal]

This is great insights @vicchenai. I just made it in a whim. I asked Gemini for suggestions and it presented few and I picked this one because there didn't seem to be good players out there. There is layoffdata and warntracker and all but they were built using hand coding :) it probably took them quite long to have it done. This is a challenging thing - 50 states having different data formats and having to poll them daily. Data cleaning is another thing. Historical data is also a thing. Plus all the blogs, reports, data presentation and api endpoints.

If it all can be done in a weekend without having to write a single line manually, sky is the limit no? Anybody having an idea can make these thing happen. I am not expecting it to make any money and it was a learning project but I do see some value for certain people.

Insurance brokers would benefit if they are first to know so they coudl target these layed off people. Recruiters the same and definitely hedge funds, short shellers and quant. Gemini tells me data is the new oil ! I am convinced.

[mschuster91]

> and there is a documented pattern of employers paying WARN Act penalties retroactively rather than filing -- especially in fast-moving situations where 60 days advance notice is operationally inconvenient.

Oh, I got a solution for that. Don't just go for WARN Act penalties. Go after offenders with the hammer called SEC and market manipulation regulations. That kind of stuff really hurts.