Difference between trading and investment banking?

mahras2
Tue, 28 Mar 2006 17:18:29 +0000

Much has changed nowadays. Nearly every trader codes. Most of the flow trading is pure equities and FI are conducted by automated algorithms anyways so traders do need to know how to code. Although a quant is typically there you still need to make adjustments which someone who doesn’t know how to code can’t do. And if exotic derivatives are being traded, programming is necessary for modelling and pricing.
Simply by looking at the statistics published by the exchanges regarding program trading is enough to show the importance of programming. The majority of the liquidity existing in the markets nowadays are because of these different market making algorithms. http://www.nyse.com/Frameset.html?displayPage=/marketinfo/ProgramTrading.html

As you can see 68.9% of all trades on the NYSE is conducted by programs which also excludes different directional strategies which may not trade as frequently or trade as a basket.

Yet another reason for why I am studying C.