Guide
Trading With Satellite Images
The workflow is simple to say and hard to run: see what changed on Earth, decide before the announcement. Here is what that actually means.
The job is not looking at a map
When people search for trading based on satellite images, they often picture a crisp overhead photo and a eureka moment. That is not the job.
The job is to answer a decision question with evidence from the physical world. Is the port busier this week? Did the factory yard fill or empty? Are the tankers moving, or sitting? Did the parking lots that proxy foot traffic recover after the last print?
A pretty tile from last summer does not do that. A measured change between recent passes does.
What people do today
Without a desk built for this, the workflow collapses into scavenger hunts. You refresh MarineTraffic for a lane. You wait for an EIA print. You ask a chatbot to summarise last week's headlines. You open Google Earth and hope the imagery is current.
None of that is trading using satellites. It is trading using delayed text about satellites, or maps that are often months or years out of date.
The funds that already do this well do not stare harder. They run a repeatable pipeline: task or buy coverage, correct it, measure it, turn it into a number they can defend, and put that number next to a position.
Satellite-backed means measured, not vibed
Satellite-backed analysis is the difference between "it looks busy" and "coverage of metal on this pad rose X versus the same window last month."
Raw imagery is the input. The expensive part is the intel: calibration, clouds, seasons, sensor quirks, and a method that does not invent a story from one blurry frame.
That is why "free satellite imagery" and "buy a scene" searches lead people into the wrong aisle. You do not need a shopping cart of pixels. You need an answer you can act on in minutes.
How Aureum runs the workflow
Query is for the question you have right now. Ask about a place, a corridor, a facility, or a commodity-linked site in plain language. Get a satellite-backed answer with the evidence shown, not a raw dump.
Track is for the watchlist you already know matters. Hand-built KPI boards on ports, commodities, factories, and corridors so the board moves when the world does.
Both are built so you are not hiring a GIS team or signing a six-figure imagery contract to get through one diligence thread.
Who this is for
Start with what you need to do. Labels like DIY investor or trader come after.
Anyone who already tries to read the physical economy before it hits a headline: DIY and retail investors, commodity-curious traders, OSINT-minded analysts, journalists, and operators doing diligence without an internal remote-sensing desk.
If your process today is "wait for the announcement," satellite-backed trading is the upgrade. If your process is already a fund stack with analysts on payroll, you already know the category. Aureum is for everyone who was locked out of it.
Run the workflow yourself
Private beta is open. Ask Earth a question, or follow hand-built Track boards on named sites.