Goldman Invests at Lightspeed
Goldman Sachs is whizzing through Wall Street at breakneck speed. By harnessing the power of technology, the investment bank is pushing itself and its clients to the very front of the queue to buy and sell shares. Bling and you’ll miss it!
Goldman Sachs is Wall Street royalty. Age-old, the investment bank has been a money tree for investors. One of its key businesses is helping investors trade fast, electronically executing orders at warp speed so that clients with quick in-quick out strategies have an edge. “Quant” investing is growing as a science of screening stocks automatically against various filters, and then trading them on autopilot. The prize money “quants” are putting up for the speediest platform is catching not just Goldman’s eye, but JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley’s, too!
Not used to losing, Goldman intends to pull out a lead against its fearsome financial competitors. Shareholders are purring as the company unveils a brand new trading platform, modestly named after the Greek God, Atlas. Set to get stock orders out the door in milliseconds, Goldman isn’t wasting any time in this technological arms race! The firm knows that capturing a decent chunk of market share now could amount to years of profit for investors later.
The brains behind Atlas? Mike Blum. He’s spent his entire life masterminding the system, but its fate will ride on the market-beating performance of those quant money managers. In the hands of everyday investors, quantitative-only strategies to buy stocks with no fundamental research have come under criticism. Shortcuts for the lazy, fake knowledge for the idiot, and false confidence for the spineless, they say. Harsh perhaps, but as the market sees Goldman try and reposition itself as a mass serving bank, its offering to the everyday investor counts. Interesting times ahead!
