Inside Joseph Plazo’s TEDx Talk on the Rise of Algorithmic Trading

No one expected Joseph Plazo’s TEDx session to dismantle the last remnants of the Wall Street mythos—but that’s exactly what he did.

Drawing on data from Plazo Sullivan Roche Capital, he showed that algorithms now dominate more than 80% of global market volume, rendering human decision-making largely ceremonial.

1. The Death of the Trading Floor

He explained that the traditional trader—the one analyzing charts and making judgment calls—has been replaced by execution models capable of scanning millions of data points in microseconds.

The Institutional Motive Behind Automation

Plazo made it clear: hedge funds replaced humans not because humans were wrong—but because humans were slow.

From Simple Bots to Market-Shaping Systems

Plazo highlighted how algorithms evolved from simple automated tools into entire ecosystems capable of liquidity discovery, sentiment analysis, arbitrage, and predictive modeling.

Why Most Humans Are Trading Against Machines

Plazo didn’t sugarcoat it. Retail traders today unknowingly compete with AI-enhanced supercomputers that see liquidity, volume, and structure at a depth Smart money trading AI no human can.

5. The TEDx Message That Hit Hard

As Joseph Plazo concluded, he left the crowd with a message that resonated long after the applause faded:
“Human intuition isn’t dead. But in today’s markets, intuition must be paired with algorithmic understanding—or it will be crushed by it.”

His TEDx talk didn’t just explain the last decade of change—it armed the public with the truth behind modern trading.
And for many, it was the wake-up call they never saw coming.