Eric Hunsader with the VPRO camera crew driving around Aurora Illinois.
Haim Bodek
Hunsader, Zhang and Bodek plot the overthrow of nefarious HFT in Winnetka.
Eric Hunsader with the VPRO camera crew driving around Aurora Illinois.
Haim Bodek
A thriller about a genius algorithm builder who dared to stand up against Wall Street
From the makers of the much-praised Quants: the Alchemists of Wall Street and Money & Speed: Inside the Black Box. Now the long-awaited final episode of a trilogy in search of the winners and losers of the tech revolution on Wall Street. Could mankind lose control of this increasingly complex system?
Trading on the financial markets is no longer dominated by humans, but by computers that allow superfast trading, based on cutting-edge math rules that determine the optimum trading strategy: the algorithms, or 'algos' for short. The result of this digital revolution on Wall Street is a complex and fragmented financial system that no one seems to understand or oversee these days. A system to which we are all connected: directly if you try your luck with some Apple shares every now and again, or indirectly because your pension fund or mutual fund invests through these markets. The only people that have any understanding of this interplay between man, computer and market are its architects: the builders of the algorithms.
Haim Bodek is among this select, and often silent, company. Bodek, a specialist in artificial intelligence, made a name for himself as a genius algorithm builder with trading legend Blair Hull and with financial superpowers like Goldman Sachs. His nickname: the 'algo arms dealer'.
In 2007 Bodek set up his own high-frequency trading business. He built what he felt was a perfect and always profitable algorithm. An algo that traded at the speed of light. But, overnight, it stopped performing. The profits evaporated into thin air. Provoked, he tries to find the cause.
In The Wall Street Code Haim Bodek gives a unique insight in the plumbing of our computerized markets. These markets used to be places where investors and businesses came together, but they have now turned into an unfathomable system of data centres where execution speed and the quality of the algorithms have become all-determining. Private and institutional investors - such as pension funds - always seem to be one step behind.
Bodek decides not to keep his findings to himself and starts a personal crusade against a rigged system. A step that goes directly against the unwritten Wall Street code of reticence and secrecy.
A film by director Marije Meerman and researcher Gerko Wessel, with breathtaking animations of the computerized markets by Bitcaves and Motoko design studios.
Featuring: algorithm builder Haim Bodek; former high-frequency trader Dave Lauer; data analyst Eric Hunsader; journalist Scott Patterson of the Wall Street Journal; trader Peter Zhang; “Battle of the Quants” organizer Bartt C. Kellermann; and trading legends Blair Hull and Thomas Peterffy.
Length: 50 minutes
The Dutch version premieres on Dutch Public Television in the VPRO Backlight series Monday, November 4, 2013 at 9 PM on Channel 2. The English version premieres online on the VPROinternational YouTube channel Monday November 4, 2013 at 4 PM ET
Watch the trailer
Twitter: #WallStCode
Press inquiries: Marina Alings
Sales: Kaisa Kriek
About VPRO Backlight: VPRO TV is national non-commercial television in the Netherlands. Backlight is VPRO’s weekly news documentary series that offers an in-depth, internationally oriented look at issues and developments behind the daily news. Backlight is being appreciated by an inspired community that seeks a deeper understanding of worldwide developments and policymakers alike. Backlight targets a worldwide audience. The program has been bought by broadcasters from Canada to Korea and from Finland to Argentina. For international versions of earlier films click here