A Practical Real Options Approach to Valuing High Frequency Trading System R&D Projects

Abstract

In the age of automation, trading and market making is about estimating the fair price of automated trading system research and development projects. This requires a new methodology to arrive at such a fair price. A real options framework is a natural choice. In this paper we review a methodology for automated trading system R&D and present a practical real option model for valuing such projects so as to enable rapid strategy cycling.