Algorithms on Wall Street

13 Jan 2011

I’ve written about computer controlled trading before and the legality of it still baffles me. Ars Technica explains the dangers:

“Our financial markets have become a largely automated adaptive dynamical system, with feedback,” says Michael Kearns, a computer science professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has built algorithms for various Wall Street firms. “There’s no science I’m aware of that’s up to the task of understanding its potential implications.”