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“ In the end , the efficiency that we hoped to reach with having one desk was not realised .”
ROBBERT WIJGERSE
Representing the firm ’ s European equities high touch refit are senior equity traders Edwin Scheffers and Dennis Grashoff – two of the longest standing members of staff in Robeco ’ s equities trading team , with 15 and 34 years under their belts , respectively . Both are first hand witnesses to the rapid evolution of electronic trading .
“ If you don ' t have any luck , you won ’ t make it in this industry , but you need to have a very good network and be connected with a lot of brokers . In the past you would pick up the phone . These days a lot of things are going by IB chat to deal ,” says Grashoff . “ The only sad thing about that is you don ' t hear the tension in somebody or the room on the other side . If something is happening you hear that in the background . On the chat you don ’ t see that .”
Scheffers confirms the team has IB chat scraping tools with automatic notifications to make sure the pair are able to capitalise on potential natural liquidity opportunities . If natural can ’ t be found , the pair favour a dark only liquidity algorithm to kick off an order in a way that won ’ t create too much market impact . For Scheffers , a love of the markets has kept him tied to the desk and committed to staying in a high touch role throughout his career .
“ I hardly ever leave the desk during market hours . I bring my sandwiches from home and I like to watch the market [ throughout ] the whole day and do not want to miss any opportunities during lunchtime ,” he says .
“ I started my career on the sellside . At that time , I would stay behind my screens all day . If you would say that a colleague trader was out for lunch or something , they [ clients ] would immediately
22 // TheTRADE // Q1 2024