R. Scott Morris is an American

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

financial engineer Financial engineering is a multidisciplinary field involving financial theory, methods of engineering, tools of mathematics and the practice of programming. It has also been defined as the application of technical methods, especially from mathema ...

and quantitative

consultant A consultant (from la, consultare "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization. Consulting servic ...

. He is president of Morris Consulting, LLC, Chief Investment Strategist of Blackthorne Capital Management, LLC, and served as CEO of the

Boston Options Exchange BOX Options Exchange, LLC (BOX) is an automated exchange operated by the TMX Group and owned by TMX and a consortium of broker-dealers. As an equity options market, it provides electronic order matching services to stockbrokers and traders. O ...

from 2006-08. He has also served as Managing Director of

Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, H ...

and Partner at

Hull Trading Company Hull Trading Company was an independent algorithmic trading firm and electronic market maker. Known for its quantitative and technology-based trading strategy, it was acquired by Goldman Sachs in 1999. History In the late 1970s, Blair Hull dev ...

Education and Hull Trading

Morris was born in

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...

and attended

Pike High School Pike High School is a public high school on the northwest side of Indianapolis, Indiana. Athletics Conference History Varsity Sports * Baseball (boys) * Basketball (girls and boys) * Cross country (girls and boys) * Football (boys) * Golf ( ...

. After completing a degree in Economics at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

in 1986, he entered a rapidly changing futures industry as the NYSE and NASDAQ began trading equity options contracts. As an associate for GNP commodities, Morris developed strategies for risk hedging and management and began his lifelong research into algorithmic trading. After joining a team of mathematicians and scientists working under

Blair Hull Blair Hull (born September 3, 1942) is an American businessman, investor, Democratic politician, and philanthropist. Hull founded Hull Trading Company in 1985 and served as the firm's Chairman and chief executive officer before selling it to Gol ...

at Hull Trading Company, he obtained an M.B.A from the

, where he specialized in both

finance Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...

and

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

. During his tenure with Hull Trading, Morris engineered electronic

option pricing In finance, a price (premium) is paid or received for purchasing or selling options. This article discusses the calculation of this premium in general. For further detail, see: for discussion of the mathematics; Financial engineering for the impl ...

systems and developed option pricing and volatility models, eventually becoming a

Partner Partner, Partners, The Partner, or, The Partners may refer to: Books * ''The Partner'' (Grisham novel), by John Grisham, 1997 * ''The Partner'' (Jenaro Prieto novel), 1928 * ''The Partners'' (book), a 1983 book by James B. Stewart * ''Partner'' (m ...

and the Director of Financial Engineering.

Career

Goldman Sachs and Boston Options Exchange

Hull Trading Company was acquired by

in 1999 for $531 million. Morris joined Goldman Sachs, where he managed the equity trading

financial engineering Financial engineering is a multidisciplinary field involving financial theory, methods of engineering, tools of mathematics and the practice of programming. It has also been defined as the application of technical methods, especially from mathema ...

groups and continued his work on trading systems and

statistical modeling A statistical model is a mathematical model that embodies a set of statistical assumptions concerning the generation of sample data (and similar data from a larger population). A statistical model represents, often in considerably idealized form, ...

. After two years, he became a

Managing Director A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

and led the firm's

algorithmic trading Algorithmic trading is a method of executing orders using automated pre-programmed trading instructions accounting for variables such as time, price, and volume. This type of trading attempts to leverage the speed and computational resources of ...

division at the Automated Execution Strategies desk. In 2006, Morris became CEO of the

Group, an automated equity options stock exchange. As CEO, Morris continued his engineering work, developing execution speed and messaging capacity for

hedge funds A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as shor ...

and algorithmic traders. Morris led the implementation of the

Sola Trading Sola is a municipality and a Seaside resort in Rogaland county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Jæren. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Solakrossen. Other villages include Tananger, Håland ...

platform and PIP price improvement algorithm. He departed in 2008 after the TMX majority ownership acquisition.

Consulting and writing

Morris is the founder of Morris Consulting, LLC, which develops quantitative models and

automated trading An automated trading system (ATS), a subset of algorithmic trading, uses a computer program to create buy and sell orders and automatically submits the orders to a market center or exchange. The computer program will automatically generate orders ba ...

strategies, and advises large trading firms on regulatory relations, risk management, and recruiting. He has spoken at numerous educational and industry events and has lectured at the

Chicago Board Options Exchange The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), located at 433 West Van Buren Street in Chicago, is the largest U.S. options exchange with an annual trading volume of around 1.27 billion at the end of 2014. CBOE offers options on over 2,200 companies ...

Risk Management Conference, the

Futures Industry Association The Futures Industry Association (FIA) is a trade association in the United States composed of futures commission merchants. A futures commission merchant is analogous to a broker; they are entities that accept orders and payment for commodity fu ...

, and the Security Traders Association of Chicago. In 2002, he lectured on volume-price ratios and optimal execution at the Computational Finance program at

Carnegie Mellon Carnegie may refer to: People * Carnegie (surname), including a list of people with the name * Clan Carnegie, a lowland Scottish clan Institutions Named for Andrew Carnegie *Carnegie Building (Troy, New York), on the campus of Rensselaer Polyt ...

, and he is currently a guest lecturer for the

Careers in Business program. Morris is also the author of Polished, a careers resource book that teaches resume, cover letter, and interview skills to college students and other first-time job seekers.

Blackthorne Capital Management

In July 2016, Morris joined Blackthorne Capital Management as the Head of Research and Strategy Design. He has spearheaded the design and implementation of Blackthorne’s Sentiment Enhanced trading models. In 2018, Morris was named Chief Investment Strategist of Blackthorne Capital Management, LLC.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, R. Scott Living people American businesspeople Goldman Sachs people University of Chicago alumni University of Chicago Booth School of Business alumni Year of birth missing (living people)