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Shouts on Bond-Trading Floor Yield to Robot Beeps
The face of automation on Wall Street is a computer hooked up to nine blinking screens that goes by the name Quantitative Market Maker, or Q.M.M. Until last year, the work that Q.M.M. performs was handled by human traders at JPMorgan Chase, who would shout prices into a phone and yell “Done!” when the trade was executed. Now, Q.M.M., which sits on the same floor as those traders in a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper, can come up with the same prices in a fraction of a second. When it completes a trade, it emits a jingling cash register sound, making the trading floor sound like an arcade. The rise of Q.M.M. points to ... (full story)