Homo speculans remains socially embedded despite algorithmic trading

Evidence

Risk spreading has been the markets’ principal insurance mechanism. But modern-day traders on the ground have also continued to rely on age-old forms of sociality and interdependence to perform their routine speculations. I have referred a few times to the image of the twenty-first century’s homo speculans as an algorithm-crunching chaos doomer residing in the dark corners of shadow trading—a creature that on first sight could not seem more distant from Weber’s “charismatic” speculator. It would be a mistake, however, to consider that figure as socially disembedded. Thanks to a growing number of detailed ethnographic studies of such intricate speculative practices within financial markets (e.g., Leins 2018; Preda 2017; LiPuma 2017; Miyazaki 2013; Zaloom 2006), we are now more aware of the social rituals binding modern trader communities together. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 277

Categorization

• DEFINE: Directly defines the book’s central figure, homo speculans, as the algorithm-crunching chaos doomer of shadow trading.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how far does the reader’s own understanding of homo speculans depend on this social-embeddedness correction?