Bank of America's global head of quant trading just left for Goldman

Michael Steliaros, the global head of quantitative solutions trading and EMEA head of agency portfolio trading at Bank of America Merrill Lynch has quit. Insiders say he left this week. He's understood to be off to Goldman Sachs.

Neither Steliaros nor Goldman confirmed his destination. Steliaros's phone line at BAML has been disconnected.

Steliaros is a specialist in algorithmic equities trading. He's been at BAML for seven and a half years. Prior to that he worked for hedge funds Panta Capital, Winton Capital and FGS Capital. He has a PhD in finance from London's Cass Business School.

It's late in the year for someone as senior as Steliaros to swap jobs. If he is off to Goldman, the implication is that GS bought out his BAML bonus. His move comes after J.P. Morgan said it's preparing to roll out LOXM, a new systematic equities trading system based upon machine learning globally in the third quarter.

David Fellah, the J,P. Morgan equities quant who developed LOXM has boasted that it will take other banks 18 to 25 months and millions of dollars of investment to come up with anything similar. In the circumstances, Steliaros' exit looks like a big loss for BAML and a big gain for Goldman Sachs.

Goldman Sachs' equities business did well in the second quarter, with revenues from equities execution increasing 17% year-on-year in the first half. Raj Mahajan, based in New York, runs Goldman's electronic equities trading business.

Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

Photo credit: Exit by Ömer Serdar Ören is licensed under CC BY 2.0.