Study: Robot analysts outwit humans on investment picks

Traders at the New York Stock Exchange on Feb 7 at Wall Street in New York City. In the next decade, automation could reduce headcount on Wall Street and the banking industry by about 200,000, according to Wells Fargo Securities. — AFP

They beat us at chess and trivia, supplant jobs by the thousands, and are about to be let loose on highways and roads as chauffeurs and couriers.

Now, fresh signs of robot supremacy are emerging on Wall Street in the form of machine stock analysts that make more profitable investment choices than humans. At least, that’s the upshot of one of the first studies of the subject, whose preliminary results were released in January.