Real-Time Risk

CHAPTER 1Silicon Valley Is Coming!

Knock‐knock.

• —Who is there?
• —Bot.
• —Bot who?
• —Bot and sold, it's a stat‐arb world.

Do you wonder why the markets have changed so much? Where's it all heading? How will it affect you? You are not alone. Today's markets are very different from what they used to be. Technological advances morphed computers and infrastructure. Changes in regulation allowed dozens of exchanges to coexist side by side. The global nature of business has ushered in round‐the‐clock deal making. All of this has created stratospheric volumes of data. The risks that come along with automated trading in real‐time are numerous. Now, the inferences from these data allow us to go to previously untapped depths of markets and discover problems and solutions that could not even be imagined 20 years ago.

Do you remember Bloomberg terminals? If so, you are reading this book not so long after it was written. JP Morgan's January 2016 announcement “to pull the plug” on thousands and thousands of Bloomberg terminals is a leading example of the sweeping disruption facing investment managers. Billion‐dollar hedge fund Citadel followed suit on August 16, 2016, by announcing that it was taking on Symphony messaging as Bloomberg's replacement. Symphony, who? Many still struggle to wrap their head around the situation, with social media platforms like LinkedIn buzzing with discussions about pulling the plug on traditional sources of market data. Yet, here is fact: The competition is not ...