Trading Robots, a human explanantion

During the slow vacation season suddenly this video popped up. It is a TEDx talk by Albert J. Menkveld. A TEDx talk is like the well known TED talks, but they are organised locally. Compared to some famous TED talks the TEDx talks sometimes lack quality, but here is a true gem.

We have written before about Albert Menkveld's work, and at Brokerdealer we love the quality of his publications. For most, if not all professionals in the trading industry this TEDx talk will not provide anything new. What it does do is provide an instrument to clearly and correctly explain what high frequency trading is and  what the benefits are. 

Menkveld manages to explain in simple terms what HFT is, he provides a bit of history and explains the benefits. This typically is the kind of communication we think te world is lacking.  Understandable explanations that people can relate to are very hard to make. Videos like this one are a good tool in balancing the caricatures of prop and high frequency trading we all see around the Internet.

The fully automated stock exchange has been a vision of traders and economists since the seventies. Before the High Frequency Trading algorithms joined in the markets, it was human beings judging the (future) value of stocks and companies. Now that the algorithms are joining the trading-game, computer agents are also contributing to this assessment of value.