Matt Levine’s Money Stuff: Quantum Bond Trading

Quantum computing

One model that I have of financial markets is that they are a very general and efficient way for turning skill and intelligence and knowledge into money. People want money. Therefore financial markets create incentives for people to:

• Develop skill, intelligence and knowledge, and
• Apply them to win at zero-sum-ish games of trading stocks and bonds and derivatives.

Is this socially beneficial? Well:

1. If people devote a lot of skill, intelligence and knowledge to financial markets, those markets will probably become better, in the sense of providing faster and tighter liquidity, more efficient price discovery, etc. That seems ...