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Wall Street's Inevitable Move Towards Automation

Informative article from Bloomberg about Wall Street's inevitable move towards automation.

It's widely accepted that "low-skill" jobs will be the easiest to automate, such as many fast food jobs. But what about fancy Wall Street traders with their Harvard MBA's and all? It appears they aren't safe, either.

This isn't exactly news. The majority of stock trading today is done by computer algorithms. And it has long seemed to me that, if any job were ripe to be replaced by robots, it would be stock traders, money managers, and similar jobs.

Some quotes from the article:

Yet in interviews, about a dozen Wall Street executives and consultants responsible for deploying technologies -- and steeped in their capabilities -- were more bearish on humans. Machines will take over task after task, they said, and banks simply won’t need nearly as many people.
...
It’s time for senior managers to stop sugarcoating, said Simon Moss, who has been advising banks and investing firms as head of Grant Thornton LLP’s fintech and innovation practice for the industry.

“Are there positions in financial services that are actually untouchable from technology? The simple answer is ‘No,’” Moss said. “It’s just a case of when.”
...
Floor traders who once shouted orders in raucous marble-columned exchanges have seen their numbers dwindle since the 1990s, forcing many to seek new work.
...
Can jobs held by office-dwelling millionaires disappear like those on factory floors?

The answer to this last question is yes. The banks can boost earnings by eliminating those "office-dwelling millionaire" jobs, and the banks' shareholders will want them to.

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