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Chasing the Same Signals: How Black-Box Trading Influences Stock Markets from Wall Street to Shanghai
John Wiley and Sons Ltd, April 2010, Pages: 256
The worst stock market crash since Black Monday during October of 1987 occurred during the first week of August of 2007. But nobody noticed.
On the morning of August 6th 2007, investment professionals were baffled with unprecedented stock patterns. Mining sector stocks were up +18% but manufacturing stocks were down -14%. It was an extreme sector skew yet the S&P index was unchanged at +0.5% on the day. The next few days would continue with excessive volatility. MBI Insurance, a stock that had rarely attracted speculation would finish up +15% on Aug 6th, followed by another +7% on Aug 7th, and then finish down -22% over the subsequent two days. The brief rally in MBI was short lived.
Only weeks later would investors begin to have insights on the dispersion patterns. Prominent hedge funds that had never had a negative annual performance began disclosing excessive trading loses with many notable firms reporting several hundred millions were lost - in a single day. Hedge funds were hemorrhaging in excess of 30% of their assets when the S&P index was unchanged. The market dispersion was the side effects of the synchronous unwind ignited by the hordes of 'computerized' strategies that were caught off guard when history didn't repeat. It was the industry's first world wide panic - by machines.
Over the past decade, computerized (or black-box) trading has had a coming of age. Black-box firms use mathematical formulas to buy and sell stocks. The industry attracts the likes of mathematicians, astrophysics and robot scientists. They describe their investment strategy as a marriage of economics and science. Their proliferation has been on the back of success, black-box firms have been among the best performing funds over the past decade, the marquee firms have generated double-digit performance with few if any months of negative returns.
Through their coming of age, these obscure mathematicians have joined the ranks of traditional buy-n-hold investors in their influence of market valuations. A rally into the market close is just as likely the byproduct of a technical signal as an earnings revision. They are speculated to represent a one third of all market volume albeit their influence to the day-to-day gyrations goes largely unnoticed. CNBC rarely comments on the sentiments of computerized investors.
Conventional wisdom suggests that markets are efficient, random walks and that stock prices rise and fall with the fundamentals of the company. How then have black-box traders prospered and how do they exploit market inefficiencies? Are their strategies on their last legs or will they adapt to the new landscape amidst the global financial crisis?
Chasing the Same Signals is a unique chronicle of the black-box industry's rise to prominence and their influence on the market place. This is not a story about what signals they chase, but rather a story on how they chase and compete for the same signals.
Reviews:
If you want to understand how computerized trading is impacting our markets, this book is for you.
-- Charles D. Ellis, Author, The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs
The interplay between algorithmically driven and traditional trading strategies affects the returns of all investors. Brian Brown's new book provides a very clear overview of how these new strategies work and more importantly, how they influence liquidity, volatility, and prices in the global equity market.
-- Andrew J. Morton, Co-creator of the Heath-Jarrow-Morton (HJM) Framework
Technology advances over the past decade have dramatically changed the dynamic world of stock market trading. Most analysts have failed to account for this 'brave new world' in their 'Monday morning quarterback' analysis of the recent worldwide financial systems collapse. Brian Brown has written the first book that clearly and colorfully describes the new technologically-driven way of doing business on the Street, and he does this with great precision and street knowledge. This new world played a central role in the Wall Street collapse, and, paradoxically, will help drive the next ascent.
-- Thomas F. Coleman, Dean and Professor, Faculty of Mathematics
Director, Waterloo Research Institute in Insurance, Securities, and Quantitative Finance, University of Waterloo
Much has been made of the activities of 'High Frequency Traders' during the Global Financial Crisis. In many cases they have been vilified, but often out of ignorance about the vital function that they perform in today's hyper-speed financial markets. Brian sets out to demystify High Frequency Trading and does so in an eminently readable fashion. This book will appeal to anyone, market professional or not, who wants to understand this often secretive group.
-- E. John Fildes, Chief Operating Officer, Asia, Instinet Pacific
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