This week in ISM I delved deeper into the world of hedge funds, specifically analyzing how automation is affecting them. During my research I came to several interesting conclusions about the industry that may help shape my future plans for both ISM and college. I hope that I will be able to take the knowledge I have gained about automation's role in hedge funds and come up with ideas that could revolutionize the industry.
From all my research one thing is very clear: automation plays a large role in hedge funds and its importance is only going to grow. Automation has become a key component of hedge funds for both middle office and management. This growing reliance on artificial intelligence and programs that can conveniently and quickly complete tasks that would take humans longer and could be potential areas for risk repeatedly lead me to the same question; Will there be a point in time where the technology is advanced enough to where humans are no longer needed at hedge funds other than the shareholders and owners? While this may sound far fetched, the possibility is there. Trading bots are programs that use algorithms to automatically buy and sell orders in the stock market. These bots have severely disrupted the industry, as it is no longer necessary to have someone manually complete trades. These trade bots are fast too, they can buy and sell a stock before a human could even click the button to buy a stock.
With all this information, my next thought is how these bots could be improved. Right now I don't want to say what my idea is exactly since I don't know if it exists already and would like to have ownership of it if no one has thought of it yet. To put it vaguely, I want to explore the possibilities of trading bots combined with artificial intelligence. The AI would know everything that affects the stock market and how it affects it in order to predict the market and make trades.
My research and discovery from this week has made me more excited than ever to learn more about my topic. In the near future I would like to have an idea for my original work for this year in ISM while I continue to search for a mentor.