4 days ago
Retail Quants May Be the Next Stabilizing Force for Markets
Retail traders using sophisticated quantitative strategies are starting to have a surprising and noticeable impact on financial prices. Many commentators criticize such do-it-yourself investing as the road to disaster for investors and a destabilizing force for markets. In fact, in a world where passive investing is exploding, this is a reassuring counter current that should aid in price discovery and bring some balance to the makeup of the market.
Speaking at the Options Industry Conference recently, Henry Schwartz, vice president of market intelligence at Cboe Global Markets, showed a slide with large volume spikes in zero-day-to-expiration options for the S&P 500 Index caused by small (under 10 contracts) orders. These ultra short-term contracts are popular with retail quantitative traders and now represent the majority of S&P 500 options volume, often exceeding half the total trading in the S&P 500 itself. If there is enough retail quant trading to drive large spikes in volume, these trades may well be affecting the price behavior of the S&P 500. Moreover, if it's happening with the S&P500, it could be happening with other major markets, too.
