Are currency traders destined for extinction? Their ranks are thinning quickly, as computers take over their tasks and banks pull back from activity in financial markets. The trend is likely to continue, and market volatility is likely to increase as a result, analysts say.
收缩率意味着“更热的土豆，而不是持有职位的人，”纽约的SGH宏观顾问首席执行官Sassan Ghahramani说，这是向货币问题建议金钱管理者提供的。一些货币管理人员持有大货币职位，但市场参与者同时搬出了这些职位，银行不再持有货币库存来润滑交易。因此，当有人想要出售大货币时，Ghahramani说：“这就像试图通过钥匙孔挤出大象。你会在定价中遇到差距。“
The number of people working in front-office currency market jobs for ten of the world’s biggest banks fell 23 percent between 2010 and 2014, to 2,300, according to London research firm Coalition Development. Meanwhile, currency trading volume averaged $4.8 trillion a day in January, down from a record $6 trillion a day at the end of 2014, according to multicurrency settlement service provider CLS Group.
The automation of currency trading is having an impact in two different ways. First, it’s eliminating the need for brokers. Traders and investors can trade directly with counterparties, or through banks using online platforms, without dealing with humans. Second, investors and speculators who take big currency positions now often use a computer algorithm to determine their trade, rather than human judgment.
“It’sman-versus-machine issues，“康涅狄格州埃塞克斯埃塞克斯的货币研究公司，外汇分析伙伴David Gilmore说，康涅狄格州的货币研究公司David Gilmore说。“电子交易平台是外汇市场侵蚀就业的重要因素。”他注意到，这些平台为用户提供了每个货币对的多个报价，为客户需求。在过去，公司和投资者将与银行的货币销售人员进行报价报价。
As for investors and speculators, swashbucklers like George Soros made legends for themselves by taking outsize bets based on their view of market fundamentals. Soros reportedly made $1 billion in 1992 by correctly wagering that the Bank of England would stop defending the pound.
“So what does George Soros 2.0 look like?” asks Robert Savage, CEO of CCTrack Solutions, a New York currency investment advisory service. Most macro traders have proved unable to succeed consistently in the currency market, he notes. “You need to have a systematic approach to markets.” And that means computerized trading. But computerized trading doesn’t completely knock out humans, he says. Whoever runs a computerized trading system often has discretion to make changes in it. “Discretionary systematic trading has become the new macro style,” Savage says.
When it comes to banks, increased regulation spurred much of the reductions in currency staff. In the U.S., the2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Actforced banks to hold more capital against speculative activity, and the law’s Volcker Rule largely forbids banks to engage in proprietary trading. In addition, regulators in the U.S. and Europe fined major banks billions of dollars in 2014 and 2015 for rigging currency rates.
因此，银行的货币销售人员必须非常谨慎地了解他们给客户的信息，使销售人员对客户及其雇主的有用。“销售人员受到对他们沟通的大量限制，”Gilmore说。“他们曾经参考过大型交易，以便为客户提供流动的想法。传统上提供给买方的颜色已经监管。“
There’s no trust issue with computers. “Banks may feel that computers are less likely to collude,” says Marshall Gittler, head of investment research at FXPrimus, aCyprus的货币经纪公司。银行s are generally shying away from currency, bond and commodity trading, hoping other business areas can prove more profitable.
The pullback means that banks are no longer acting as market makers and no longer ensuring liquidity in times of market volatility. And that means choppier trading conditions. Just like stock and bond markets, currencies have experienced flash crashes in the past few years.
For example, in January 2015, the瑞士国家银行宣布放弃努力，以保持欧元以上1.2瑞士法郎, and within five minutes the euro dropped 30 percent. “Banks that typically would have taken the other side of the trade would have created a lot more circuit breakers,” Ghahramani says. “But they weren’t there.”
他和其他人说，市场收缩将继续下去。“技术不会向后滚动”，因为Ghahramani放了它。分析师表示，这意味着以货币汇率的更多强烈波动的比赛。吉尔莫尔说，收缩饲料源性波动，使交易更危险，从而导致更多收缩。“这是一个反馈循环。”