(Previously Ranked 6) Recent congressional reform debates have stoked public anger at Wall Street elites who are perceived to have a leg up in the stock market. But Dan Mathisson still gets respect for advancing the technology that drives sophisticated trading strategies.
The Credit Suisse managing director’s Advanced Execution Services division is still where it was when he moved over from hedge fund firm D. E. Shaw & Co. to start it in 2001: in the forefront of high-powered institutional trading, its technology still pushing the envelope. Blockfinder, which combines trade crossing, algorithms and block liquidity, “is the hottest new thing for us,” says Mathisson, 39.
With customers of AES’s Crossfinder platform looking to move more and more 10,000-plus-share blocks, “we turned our attention to a technology solution,” says Mathisson, and Blockfinder’s daily volume of 35 million shares makes it one of the biggest trading destinations of its kind. As ever in the middle of the automated trading action, Mathisson calmly reflects on the harrowing May 6 market slide. “It should not have happened, but it is an engineering problem, easy to fix with circuit breakers and new rules,” he says.
AES already kicks out instant messages to inform clients of trading halts, he adds, “so we will make these work for circuit-breaker triggers too.”
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