10 Million and Counting: How Robotic Trading Is Killing Wall Street Jobs

While some decry this as an innovation-stifling economic disaster, there are those who believe that given the past behavior of 'financial professionals' this may be evidence of prudent risk management and a boon to civilization.

Though there is the question of who, exactly, is programming all those robo-traders. JL

John Byrne reports in The New York Post:

A new study suggests that an estimated 10 million prospective finance jobs have been lost since 2000 and countless billions in capital was not created due to the proliferation of robotic trading platforms.We would have over 13,000 publicly listed companies today instead of 5,000.
The US stock market is at a crossroads as a consensus of market mavens concludes that high-frequency trading is taking its toll on Wall Street.
A new study suggests that an estimated 10 million prospective finance jobs have been lost since 2000 and countless billions in capital was not created due to the proliferation of robotic trading platforms.“We would have over 13,000 publicly listed companies today instead of the paltry 5,000 we now have,” David Weild, chief executive of Weild & Co. and former Nasdaq vice chairman, told The Post. And that has also resulted in subdued volumes, with stock market participants sidelined by a dearth of initial public offerings, Weild said.
Weild also placed blame on Washington regulators, who he said have hugely restrained the number of offerings since rules were changed and amended over the past three decades — resulting in an annual loss of more than 650,000 potential jobs since 2000 alone from “unrealized” capital ventures.
Because of the changes, he added, the US has averaged 160 IPOs each year the past 15 years — rather than the 950 his studies claim would otherwise materialize.
“This is the worst I have seen it since the market crash of 2007. It has been a slow, steady slide downhill,” David Shields, a New York Stock Exchange floor veteran, told The Post.
Stock volume, though not shabby, is about flat year over year — and down about 4 percent in November compared with October, when it dipped 9 percent from the previous month, according to the Tabb Group.
Equity funds, meanwhile, posted outflows of $9.69 billion in October, compared to outflows of $9.22 billion in September, noted the Investment Company Institute.
October also had the smallest average trade size in a decade — 203 shares, finishing November only marginally better at 207 shares.
“It really demonstrates that capital formation is at a crossroads,” said Chris Nagy, a former top manager on the trading side at TD Ameritrade