Toggling between two computer screens instead of four. Slower wireless connections. Plain old cellphones — missed calls and all — standing in for highly programmed devices that allow instantaneous connections. Instant messaging and videoconferencing replacing quick bursts of conversation across a floor.
Mehmet Kinak, global head of systematic trading at T. Rowe Price, an asset management company, used to sit with a group of about a dozen traders on the seventh floor of his company’s headquarters in Baltimore. Past the sea of screens — traders typically had three or four at their desks — were views of the National Aquarium and Camden Yards, the home of the Orioles.
Another company, Citadel Securities, a Chicago “market maker” that matches buyers and sellers, booked a hotel — the luxury Four Seasons resort in Palm Beach, Florida — and set up a makeshift trading floor so it could continue to do business uninterrupted. Traders typically have three to four screens they use to keep a constant eye on price changes, communications from trading partners and market data sources. But at home, most probably have a laptop and another monitor, so more toggling and clicking is required to nail down the maturity schedule of a bond or call up the daily trading volume on a stock.
globeinvestor Maybe that’s the whole point of what’s happening: slow down