Why Markets Don't Panic Anymore + How to Build Real Relationships at Work

“Algorithmic trading accounts for roughly 60 to 75 percent of total trading volume,” Scott Galloway says, citing a shift that has fundamentally changed how markets behave. The S&P 500 keeps hitting all-time highs despite pandemics, tariffs, wars, and political chaos — and the question from a Reddit user named previous_golf_95-41 is whether advances in electronic trading tech are modulating reactive trading. Galloway’s answer is a cautious “maybe,” but he spends the rest of the segment unpacking what that actually means for investors, before pivoting to a second question about introversion at work and a third about the real ROI of city living.

Why Markets Don’t Panic the Way They Used To

Galloway starts with a warning: “It’s always dangerous to think it’s different this time.” He recalls the late 1990s, when the NASDAQ surged past any rational number and the Wall Street Journal floated the idea that valuations had been fundamentally re-priced — only for 2000 to prove otherwise. Still, he acknowledges that the market’s composition has changed. Algorithmic trading grew from about 15 percent of U.S. equity volume in 2003 to over 70 percent by 2010, and has since plateaued around 70 to 80 percent. “If you think you’re a stock picker,” Galloway says, “just keep in mind you’re competing against an algorithm that looks at millions of points of data designed by a ton of PhDs.”