The silence of the electronic trading floor is about to be broken.
A new company, MarketSound, allows electronic futures traders to hear the sound of trading in real time with its artificial intelligence software.
According to Lawrence Gazette, president of MarketSound, New York, the trading system was created to increase the amount of information available to electronic traders, many of whom have come from traditional open outcry trading floors.
MarketSound is being marketed to electronic traders of stock index futures, interest rate futures and currency futures.
The software translates the electronic market data feed, such as Reuters or Bridge, into a real-time commentary on market activity and broadcasts the information over the PC's audio system.
Two investment banks, which he would not name, already have signed up to use the system, which is licensed to users on a monthly subscription basis.
Mr. Gazette said traders can react faster to the information they hear than what they see on a screen.
Wade Vagle, a former floor trader, and Brad Fishman, who is a former institutional trader, developed MarketSound with a team of programmers, sound engineers and artificial intelligence experts.
One caveat: To avoid bothering your fellow trader, "it works better with headphones," Mr. Gazette said.
