The Future of Computer Trading in Financial Markets: Has it Happened?

Kevin Houstoun, Chairman of Rapid Addition gives an interview at the conference “The Future of Computer Trading in Financial Markets: has it happened?” organised by himself, Sir John Beddington (Oxford Martin School) and Jean-Pierre Zigrand (FMG/SRC/LSE) in London.

The Foresight Report into the Future of Computer Trading came out 10 years ago in an environment of technological and financial paradigm shifts, the emergence and dominance of HFTs, flash crashes and Mifid II. Thirty-one academic drivers were commissioned from the world’s leading academics, as well as twenty-two economic impact assessments, one survey and a study of interviews with computer-based traders. Three international workshops were organised and their findings were published. In the report, the lead experts were tasked with using the academic findings to formulate many propositions, foresights, scenarios and predictions about the possible future market structures, the technologies used, and the economic and financial consequences for liquidity, resilience, efficiency, international competition, fairness, the costs of transacting and the cost of capital.

This mini-conference aimed to review the events of the last ten years, to point out the impact, failures and successes of the report, and to allow the participants to formulate and debate their views of the next ten years and peak into the crystal ball for a glimpse of the future of the future of computer-based trading in financial markets.