This Growth Signal Nailed ASTS. Who’s Next?
January 20, 6:12 am
AST SpaceMobile (up 400% in the last year) didn’t just rally out of nowhere.
Long before the stock surged, something quieter - but far more telling - was already happening inside the company: it was hiring aggressively. While investors debated narratives around space stocks, execution was already underway behind the scenes.
That hiring trend turned out to be a powerful signal. And ASTS wasn’t an outlier.
Hiring before hype
One of the most reliable early indicators we track is LinkedIn employee growth.
When employees update their profiles to show where they work, they do so in real time. Aggregated at scale, this creates a surprisingly effective proxy for headcount growth - often months before it shows up in earnings reports or guidance.
Across thousands of public companies we track, the pattern is clear:
- Companies with 20%+ growth in LinkedIn employees over the past year have seen their stock prices rise 43% on average
- Companies with a 20%+ decline in LinkedIn employees have seen their stocks fall 3.6% on average
And it makes sense. Companies expand headcount when demand, contracts, or execution timelines justify it - and markets tend to price that in late.
ASTS: the signal worked
AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) is a textbook example.
In January last year, ASTS had 487 employees listed on LinkedIn. One year later, that figure had climbed to 789 employees, a 62% increase. The internal growth came first, and once the market saw the growth, the stock price followed.
When hiring and price move together
Several other companies show the same alignment between accelerating headcount and strong stock performance:
- Rezolve AI (RZLV): +320% LinkedIn employee growth, +92% stock price
- POET Technologies (POET): +50% LinkedIn employee growth, +62% stock price
- MP Materials (MP): +37% LinkedIn employee growth, +223% stock price
These names validate the thesis: when execution accelerates, markets eventually catch up.
High-Growth companies the market may be missing
The most interesting opportunities often sit in the gap between operational momentum and market recognition. Right now, several companies show strong hiring trends without the same level of stock price follow-through:
- Astera Labs (ALAB): +64% LinkedIn employee growth, +32% stock price
- NextDecade (NEXT): +52% LinkedIn employee growth, +8% stock price
- IonQ (IONQ): +44% LinkedIn employee growth, +21% stock price
- Zeta Global (ZETA): +36% LinkedIn employee growth, +18% stock price
In each case, internal expansion appears to be outpacing current valuations. All of the companies highlighted above currently hold an AI Score above 60, indicating that LinkedIn hiring trends are not occurring in isolation. A broader set of alternative data signals - including revenue growth, social media engagement, web traffic, and retail investor sentiment - supports and reinforces the same underlying growth narrative.
The take-away
Markets react quickly to earnings headlines, but they move far more slowly when it comes to operational signals hiding in plain sight. Hiring trends don’t guarantee stock performance - but they often reveal execution and intent long before those results reach financial statements.
This is the power of alternative data. By tracking real-world behavior - like how aggressively a company is scaling its workforce - it becomes possible to spot momentum before it shows up in revenue, guidance, or headlines.
ASTS already answered the first question: does this growth signal work?
Now the real edge comes from identifying where those same signals are building next.
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