THE RISE OF TRADING BOTS

THE PROMISE & PERILS OF AI-POWERED TRADING ÅLGORITHMS

- DAMIEN MARTIN

An interesting relationship between tech and trading has developed over the last couple of decades. Electronic trading platforms such as E-Trade allowed people to trade financial assets from the comfort of their own homes. Then as computing power grew, it allowed for high-frequency trading in fractions of a second. Mobile apps such as Robinhood put that ability in the palm of people's hands. Naturally, with the rise of Al, trading bots came along for the ride. Now, traders don't even have to conduct the trades themselves, they can create a program that does it for them. Since these trading bots are automated, they can make transactions faster and without human error, setting up the potential for big profits. While that’s an exciting development, there are some things to watch out for. Should your trading bot do something illegal, with or without you telling it to, it won’t be the program that gets arrested.

GOING ROGUE

There haven’t been any real-world instances of trading bots going rogue yet, but regulators are certainly wary.

SEC chair Gary Gensler has warned of “the possibility of AI destabilizing the global financial market if big tech-based trading companies monopolize AI development and applications within the financial sector.” Regulators “have repeatedly highlighted the potential for AI to inadvertently amplify biases that could lurk in their designers, further jeopardizing competition and market efficiency.”