Bank of America just poached a top trader from Goldman Sachs

Electronic traders are quite the thing right now. As we were first to report last week, Barclays has got a new senior electronic trader from KCG.  And as we were first to report in the weeks before that, all sorts of other banks have been bolstering their electronic trading desks too (think J.P. Morgan and Citi, think Goldman Sachs, BAML and Unicredit.) Now we can reveal that BAML has achieved itself another top electronic sales trader from Goldman Sachs,

The latest arrival is Malcolm Pratt, a director-level sales trader who's been around. Pratt's most recent 27-month stint was at Goldman Sachs in London. Before that, he spent nearly five years at Deutsche Bank and nearly four years at Credit Suisse.

If you're an equities trader who's wondering how to survive the market gyrations as MiFID II is introduced, you might also want to take a look Pratt's history of career reinvention. McKinsey & Co., says 40% of equities sales and trading professionals have lost their jobs since 2011. Pratt clearly didn't, thanks to a cunning career change when he moved to Credit Suisse. At Deutsche, he was head of equity prop trading for Europe, but when Pratt moved to Credit Suisse in 2011 it was as an algorithmic sales trader with a focus on best execution. Since then, this appears to have become his niche.

The upshot is that Pratt looks highly desirable in the new world where algorithmic trading and best execution are all-important. If you want to switch between top banks and get poached in the third quarter, you might want to try positioning yourself like this too.

Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com