Key points of the talk : Who’s doing the work? Financial economists – Develop Equilibrium models, inventory control models, asymmetric information models. Some strategic equilibrium in the background High Frequency Econometricians – Less concerned with issues about strategic equilibrium. Working on predicting realized volatility. When you hear the word, “ Microstructure noise”, you can be reasonably certain that it is a HFT econometrician Mathematicians – NYU Algo trading conference had about 300 mathematicians who had a fair enough IT background.

Introduction The authors begin their introductory chapter stating that gone are the days when the primary purpose of stock market was capital allocation. Instead, they say, The primary purpose of the stock exchanges has devolved to catering to a class of highly profitable market participants called high frequency traders, or HFTs, who are interested only in hyper-short term trading, investors, be damned Indeed if one looks at some of the basic numbers that drive volumes, it is clear that HFT firms have become exchanges’ biggest customers.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njoq3HDYwj0?rel=0]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMPqsjuXDmE?rel=0]

With total silence around me and my mind wanting to immerse in a book, I picked up this book from my inventory. I came across a reference to this work in Aaron Brown’s book on Risk Management. First something about the cover: The young woman on the right is the classical Goddess Fortuna, whom today we might call Lady Luck. The young man on the left is Chance. Fortuna is holding an enormous bunch of fruits, symbolizing the good luck that she can bring.