Goldman Trading Desk That Once Had 500 People Is Down to Three

(Bloomberg) -- Many Wall Street traders are concerned about being replaced by machines in the future, but at one Goldman Sachs Group Inc. unit it’s already happened.

“Equity trading: 15-20 years ago we had 500 people making markets in stocks. Today we have three,” Goldman Sachs President David Solomon said Monday at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California.

Solomon said the introduction of more technology into the trading business has made it more efficient for clients, while also introducing new risks. For Goldman Sachs, it has changed the mix of its workforce, as the bank has 9,000 engineers on staff and more employees are focused on regulation.

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Goldman has “an enormous investment in machine learning and, based on history, how markets will function,” Solomon said. It makes speed “much more important than capital.”

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