Edgar Perez, author of Knightmare on Wall Street and The Speed Traders, partnering with Terrapinn Training to bring key information security insights for CEOs, board members and investors who need to become more educated about cyber security today.
New York City, NY, USA — The record pace of auto sales in the United States is slowing down, leaving investors increasingly bearish on auto stocks. But there is one exception, says The New York Times. Tesla, the electric-vehicle upstart, continues to surge.
Tesla surpassed Ford Motor and General Motors in market value, starkly illustrating the growing gap in investors’ optimism over its future versus the prospects for the traditional carmakers from Detroit. Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, has shattered the conventional wisdom that automakers should be viewed as a stable, reliable investment. Instead, he promotes his California-based company as a dynamic vehicle for growth, despite the risks and challenges ahead of it.
In his vision, Tesla is going to change the world, and is primed to cash in on the two transformative trends in the industry: the shift to electric vehicles as part of a broader societal move to cleaner energy, and the advent of automated driving. Yet, despite Tesla’s announcement in 2014 that it was hiring dozens of security researchers to test its cars (about 40 or so employees are now dedicated to information security), researchers at the Chinese firm Tencent revealed serious security issues when they burrowed through the Wifi connection of a Tesla S all the way to its driving systems and remotely activated the moving vehicle’s brakes.
Security problems in Tesla vehicles are bound to continue. In the same way hackers have attacked big and small companies to get ahold of their most critical information, cybercriminals might adapt spear phishing, stealing the driver’s credentials, or ransomware, which is the malicious software that holds computers and systems hostage for money, to work on cars. Tesla better keeps hiring more ethical hackers to further test its systems.
Edgar Perez, author of The Speed Traders and Knightmare on Wall Street, is a recognized global keynote speaker and director of programs targeted at board members, chief executive officers and senior executives looking for new ways to gain and maintain a competitive business advantage. Partnering with Terrapinn Training, Mr. Perez offers the 3-Day Masterclass Cybersecurity for executives to:
• Gain a comprehensive understanding of cybersecurity and its key aspects
• Get to grips with various cybersecurity testing methods
• Learn valuable system administration techniques for executives
• Master the cybersecurity framework and its five core functions
• Discover how to establish or improve your cybersecurity program
• Consider how the “weak human link” can become the organization’s greatest strength
• Understand the four components of the cyber preparedness continuum
SPEAKER’S KEYNOTE TOPICS
• Establishing or Improving a Cybersecurity Program
The NIST Cybersecurity Framework, which was drafted by the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), comprises leading practices from various standards bodies that have proved to be successful when implemented, and it also may deliver regulatory and legal advantages that extend well beyond improved cybersecurity for organizations that adopt it early. Its adoption may prove advantageous for businesses across virtually all industries. Mr. Perez will explain why a proper Cybersecurity Program will build on the analysis of the possible areas of concern, an understanding of the company’s most critical assets, and a thorough review of Information Technology’s policies and procedures when faced with cybercrime.
• The Importance of the Cybersecurity Framework for Directors and CEOs
An email embedded with malware. Security systems hacked by thieves. Credit card numbers stolen from store purchases. There’s certainly no shortage of examples when it comes to data security breaches and the havoc they wreak on business. No wonder then that nearly a third of CEOs in KPMG’s latest global survey identified cyber security as the issue having the biggest impact on their companies today. Every organization should apply a Cybersecurity Framework for analyzing cyber security, and ideally it should be integrated into an organization’s existing enterprise risk framework. The key is making it part of the mainstream of risk management within an organization. The most innovative companies today have recognized that cyber security is a customer experience and revenue opportunity, not just a risk that needs to be managed. Mr. Perez will explain why this must done across the entire organization and why the CEO and Board of Directors have the most important role to play.
• The Biggest Risks for Financial Markets
Constant regulatory changes and technological evolution have transformed the financial landscape so profoundly since the advent of the first electronic networks in the early 1970s. Regulators around the world are now in a race to respond to the evolution of technology in financial markets and prevent its operational challenges from becoming the biggest risk for financial markets. However, when considering technology and the cyber landscape, errors are bound to happen. Financial services firms are expected to have deployed the most sophisticated defense systems against cyberattacks. Trading firms are expected to have controls in place and invest in the technology to keep up to date. Most companies would realize the need of these investments and honestly attempt to implement them, but their IT departments would soon hit a wall, because of direct involvement from senior management and boards of directors. Compliance actions against those who missed their importance will go a long way toward restoring investor confidence and limiting the impact of the biggest risk for financial markets.
• The Impact of Brexit in the U.K and the World
Companies inside and outside Britain’s borders have warned that the Brexit decision is affecting their businesses, highlighting how the June vote for the UK to leave the European Union is having wide repercussions. The vote roiled equity markets worldwide and led to a devaluation of sterling amid concerns over a prolonged slowdown in consumer demand. The U.K.’s decision to leave the European Union inflicted an immediate blow on the economy as business activity shrank at its fastest pace since the last recession seven years ago. The International Monetary Fund said that it had become less optimistic on global growth, and warned the damage could worsen if confidence falters among investors and companies, as fears abound over businesses and customers reining in spending during a period of uncertainty for the UK as it negotiates the terms of its exit. Mr. Perez will identify the world economies that will feel the lion’s share of the short and long-term pain to come.
• Finance in the New Global Economy
Until quite recently, globalization was seen as a one-way street. Multinationals, which led the charge four decades or so ago into growing global markets, were its ambassadors, and American and European workers, whose wages and upward mobility were flattened, were feeling left out. The core idea was that globalization, technological innovation and unfettered free trade would erase historical and geographic boundaries, making the world ever more economically interconnected and alike. Developed economies would come under more and more competitive pressure from eager upstart nations. Now we are entering a new age of volatility. Financiers will become less important, manufacturers more so. Blue collar jobs will go high tech. Robots will replace Chinese workers. Mr. Perez will discuss why finance stands now in front of its biggest transformation triggered not by any of the financial conglomerates that dominate the world today but by obscure startups that could be working already in garages in Silicon Valley, Shanghai, Kiev or Delhi.
• China: To Rebalance or Not to Rebalance
China’s 12th Five-Year Guideline in 2011 included efforts to rebalance its economy, shifting emphasis from investment towards consumption and development from urban and coastal areas toward rural and inland areas. Flash forward to 2016 and the country is exhibiting massive overcapacity in sectors linked to real estate, steel, cement, coal and construction equipment, zombie businesses continue to undermine the sustainability of China’s growth and exports are declining. At 260% of gross domestic product, the country’s overall debt is approaching danger levels. The world’s second-largest economy is now posting its weakest annual growth in 25 years, 6.9% for 2015. To top it all, $676 billion left China in 2015; with so much overcapacity in China, lack of confidence in the future as monetary policy can change tomorrow, why should people keep money inside China? Why should we bet on China? Mr. Perez will bring the answers you are looking for.
• Blockchain and its impact on Finance
Blockchain technology (the software behind the digital currency, Bitcoin) offers an opportunity to overhaul existing business models, including banking infrastructure, approach to settlements and customer interactions. Now it is only a matter of time before the broader financial services and banking industries shift to blockchain and network-based approaches. The application possibilities are endless, improving the way we hold and transfer secure goods from money to deeds to music to intellectual property. In fact, blockchain, as a pure platform technology, may be able to cut out the middlemen (or middle companies) everywhere, even disrupting other disruptors like Airbnb or Uber. Mr. Perez will explain why the question is not whether network business models supported by blockchain technology will disrupt organizations, but when.
• Social Engineering: The “Weakest Human Link” in Cybersecurity
Social engineering involves tricking your employees into breaching security protocols or giving away information, most often over the telephone or via email. Social engineering exploits human weaknesses rather than technology, preying upon people’s propensity towards trust in particular. Often, these exploits are used to gather information to support a more targeted cyberattack, with the initial forays based on the premise of ‘little and often’ so as not to cause concern. Employees at all levels, including senior executives, are vulnerable. Mr. Perez will explain why by improving employee awareness and introducing simple technical measures, organizations can protect themselves against social engineering techniques and the risk of a cyberattack and its potential impact on business, customers and data.
• The Present and Future of High-Frequency Trading
On May 6, 2010, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted nearly 1,000 points, then its biggest intraday point drop ever. The “Flash Crash” revealed the influence of high-frequency trading to mainstream audiences around the world. In fact, over the past 15 years, the global financial market has fragmented: where there were once three main U.S. exchanges, there are now more than 40 exchanges and alternative trading systems. High-frequency trading companies have largely replaced traditional broker-dealers, using algorithms instead of human traders to make decisions in milliseconds, mostly in response to orders made by other algorithms. Mr. Perez will discuss the benefits brought by technology, making trading faster and more efficient, as well as the potential costs brought upon institutional and retail investors.
ABOUT KNIGHTMARE ON WALL STREET
Knightmare on Wall Street, The Rise and Fall of Knight Capital and the Biggest Risk for Financial Markets, provides a fascinating account of what it took to elevate the firm to the cusp of the retail investing revolution of the late 1990s, to struggle through booms and busts, and to bring the firm down, to end up ultimately being ignominiously bought up by a competitor.
Knight Capital announced a staggering loss of $440 million. What followed after this shocking announcement were several rounds of desperate conversations with a number of vulture players who had smelled opportunity and were readying themselves to pick up bargain-priced pieces. On August 6, 2012, Joyce confirmed that Knight Capital had struck a deal with Jefferies, TD Ameritrade, Blackstone, GETCO, Stephens, and Stifel Financial, staving off collapse days after the trading mishap.
Knightmare on Wall Street, is a thrilling minute-by-minute account of the terrifying hours following Knight Capital’s August 1, 2012 trading debacle, with news-breaking research regarding the firm’s 17 years of tumultuous existence as an independent company. Knightmare on Wall Street is the definitive behind-the-scenes story of Knight Capital.
ABOUT THE SPEED TRADERS
High-frequency traders have been called many things-from masters of the universe and market pioneers to exploiters, computer geeks, and even predators. Everyone in the business of investing has an opinion of speed traders, but how many really understand how they operate? The shadow people of the investing world, today’s high-frequency traders have decidedly kept a low profile-until now. In this title, The Speed Traders, Mr. Perez opens the door to the secretive world of high-frequency trading (HFT). Inside, prominent figures of HFT drop their guard and speak with unprecedented candidness about their trade.
Mr. Perez begins with an overview of computerized trading, which formally began on February 8, 1971, when NASDAQ launched the world’s first electronic market with 2,500 over-the-counter stocks and which has evolved into the present-day practice of making multiple trades in a matter of microseconds. He then picks the brains of today’s top players. John Netto (M3 Capital), Manoj Narang (Tradeworx), and Aaron Lebovitz (Infinium Capital Management) are just a few of the luminaries who decided to break their silence and speak openly to Mr. Perez. Virtually all of the expertise available from the world of speed trading is packed into these pages.
The Speed Traders, published by McGraw-Hill, is the most comprehensive, revealing work available on the most important development in trading in generations. High-frequency trading will no doubt play an ever larger role as computer technology advances and the global exchanges embrace fast electronic access. The Speed Traders explains everything there is to know about how today’s high-frequency traders make millions-one cent at a time.
ABOUT EDGAR PEREZ
Mr. Edgar Perez is a published author, business consultant for billion-dollar private equity and hedge funds and Council Member at the Gerson Lehrman Group, Guidepoint Global Advisors and Research International, with subject matter expertise in cyber security, investing, trading, financial regulation (Dodd-Frank Act) and market structure.
He is author of Knightmare on Wall Street, The Rise and Fall of Knight Capital and the Biggest Risk for Financial Markets (2013), and The Speed Traders, An Insider’s Look at the New High-Frequency Trading Phenomenon That is Transforming the Investing World, published in English by McGraw-Hill Inc. (2011), Published in Mandarin by China Financial Publishing House (2012), and Investasi Super Kilat, published in Bahasa Indonesia by Kompas Gramedia (2012).
Mr. Perez is course director of Cybersecurity Boardroom Workshop, How Boards of Directors and CXOs Can Build the Proper Foundation to Address Today’s Information Security Challenges, and The Speed Traders Workshop, How High Frequency Traders Leverage Profitable Strategies to Find Alpha in Equities, Options, Futures and FX; he has presented his workshops in Singapore, Hong Kong, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Warsaw, Kiev, New York, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai. He contributes to The New York Times and China’s International Finance News and Sina Finance.
Mr. Perez has presented to the Council on Foreign Relations, Vadym Hetman Kyiv National Economic University (Kiev), Quant Investment & HFT Summit APAC (Shanghai), U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (Washington DC), CFA Singapore, Hong Kong Securities Institute, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, University of International Business and Economics (Beijing), Hult International Business School (Shanghai) and Pace University (New York), among other public and private institutions. In addition, Mr. Perez has spoken at a number of global conferences, including Cyber Security World Conference (New York), Inside Market Data (Chicago), Emerging Markets Investments Summit (Warsaw), CME Group’s Global Financial Leadership Conference (Naples Beach, FL), Harvard Business School’s Venture Capital & Private Equity Conference (Boston), High-Frequency Trading Leaders Forum (New York, Chicago), MIT Sloan Investment Management Conference (Cambridge), Institutional Investor’s Global Growth Markets Forum (London), Technical Analysis Society (Singapore), TradeTech Asia (Singapore), FIXGlobal Face2Face (Seoul) and Private Equity Convention Russia, CIS & Eurasia (London).
Mr. Perez has been interviewed on CNN’s Quest Means Business, CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, Worldwide Exchange, Cash Flow and Squawk Box, FOX BUSINESS’s Countdown to the Closing Bell and After the Bell, Bloomberg TV’s Market Makers, CNN en Español’s Dinero, Petersburg – Channel 5, Sina Finance, BNN’s Business Day, CCTV China, Bankier.pl, TheStreet.com, Leaderonomics, GPW Media, Channel NewsAsia’s Business Tonight and Cents & Sensibilities. In addition, Mr. Perez has been featured on Sohu, News.Sina.com, Yicai, eastmoney, Caijing, ETF88.com, 360doc, AH Radio, CNFOL.com, CITICS Futures, Tongxin Securities, ZhiCheng.com, CBNweek.com, Caixin, Futures Daily, Xinhua, CBN Newswire, Chinese Financial News, ifeng.com, International Finance News, Finance.QQ.com, hexun.com, Finance.Sina.com, The Korea Times, The Korea Herald, The Star, The Malaysian Insider, BMF 89.9, iMoney Hong Kong, CNBC, Bloomberg Hedge Fund Brief, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Dallas Morning News, Valor Econômico, FIXGlobal Trading, TODAY Online, Oriental Daily News and Business Times.
Mr. Perez was a vice president at Citigroup, a senior consultant at IBM, and a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Co. in New York City. Previously, he managed Operations and Technology for Peruval Finance. Mr. Perez has an undergraduate degree in Systems Engineering from Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería, Lima, Peru (1994), a Master of Administration from Universidad ESAN, Lima, Peru (1997) and a Master of Business Administration from Columbia Business School, New York, with a dual major in Finance and Management (2002). He belongs to the Beta Gamma Sigma honor society. Mr. Perez is an accomplished salsa and hustle dancer and resides in the New York City area.
Media Contact:
Julia Petrova
Media Relations Coordinator
The Speed Traders
+1-414-FORUMS0
jpetrova@thespeedtraders.com
