The role of automation in financial trading companies

High Frequency Trading (HFT) has significantly affected the financial market - how trade is performed, types of employees hired, technology, or even market regulations. There are arguments that important risks arrive from trade automation, especially with the use of ultra-low latency trading systems. It also gives a possibility of achieving (higher) returns more quickly with less residual losses, i.e. algorithms may lead to a lower risk of exposure than traditional ‘human' traders. A higher level of automation in trading companies is a reality, which brings important management issues. The rise in competition between algo-traders has led to the rise of the so-called Quant 2.0: the rebirth of complex algorithms and artificial intelligence to collect, extract and process information available from any source of information. im of this article is, through a literature review, to present the main issues concerning automation in financial trading companies, and how the highly probable introduction of the Blockchain technology may affect HFT and the financial market - either the general market design, or specifically, how trading is performed.