Markets are increasingly getting shaped by machines rather than us: FT mined data from top finance houses showing that high-frequency trading powered by automated trading algorithms is on the rise. The most outstanding result of this is investors turning aggressively passive, not just because it’s cheaper, but also because it’s getting increasingly hard to beat the market with a wide pool of educated investment managers in the market (the number of CFA charter holders to listed companies). Data from the past 20 years shows high-frequency trading volumes picking up from the post-crisis drop-off. Meanwhile, the volume of trading done by traditional active asset managers has flatlined. This shift has also reshaped the labor market of the industry, as now more quants and data analysts are recruited, while demand for traditional analysts has stagnated.

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