How Virtu trained its intelligent algos

Firm has sought to meld traders’ instincts with insights from ‘massive scale’ data

“All we’ve done is coded everything a human trader would ever do.”

This is how Stephen Cavoli, head of execution services at market-marker and execution services provider Virtu Financial, describes the firm’s machine learning-powered agency execution algorithms. By Cavoli’s estimates, there are only a handful of firms that have the technical skills and depth of pocket to do it. Buy-siders say he is probably right.

Virtu Financial comes to the task having started out as a high-tech market-maker