Michael James Aitken is a New Zealand author who specializes in the area of security market microstructure and design. He is listed among the top 1000 authors publishing in the finance literature over the last 50 years. His research has contributed to the understanding of market microstructure and its impact on market efficiency and, in particular, on market integrity. This results in great part from his role in the design of information systems for real-time fraud detection in securities markets.
Career
Early in his career, he designed courses and computer programs to support the curriculum for fourth year honours and PhD programs. Along with "Trading and Dealing in Securities Markets" and "Broking and Market-Making", he developed “REPLAY”, a program that enables the dynamics of any automated security market to be replayed in its entirety, providing access to the working dynamics of securities markets for research and training purposes. Aitken then provided the software and exercise manual to universities through SIRCA which he founded in 1997. He also designed the software program “EVENTS”, that allows any major market event to be reconstructed, allowing a common research design used in finance, event studies, to be produced in a matter of hours and proved an innovation in academia, as explained below. Both programs are now part of SMARTS, the world-leading software for market surveillance, sold to NASDAQ OMX in 2010. With infrastructure funding, he also led the development of physical research infrastructure and developed an innovation in academia called the “work-based” learning model designed for post-graduate students. The model was awarded the Business Higher Education Roundtable Outstanding Achievement in Collaboration in Education and Training in a program over 3 years in duration in 1999. The award noted the research's innovativeness; the strength of the relationship between collaborating partners; its outreach inclusion (e.g. overseas - to other groups, companies, its national benefits; and cultural impact on the partner/organisation. Aitken pioneered the Market Quality Framework and Market Quality Dashboard, designed to estimate the impact of market design change on market quality. He has led the development of a suite of commercial software services to the securities, broking, health insurance and accounting and audit industries as part of his work for the CMCRC. He has recently extended R&D into a new domain in order to detect fraud in the health sector, giving rise to the HiBiS and I+Plus technology to detect waste, errors and fraud in the health sector. Aitken acts as an expert witness and has applied the technologies developed at the CMCRC to assist Courts, regulators and market participants in allegations of insider trading, market manipulation and breaches of disclosure, establishing new standards in the process. Since 1998, he has acted as an expert in matters involving insider trading, market manipulation, the impact of information, front-running and broker-client conflict in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Singapore, Hong Kong and has provided expert reports on issues of market microstructure, market efficiency and market integrity to regulators, exchanges, brokers, intermediaries and other institutions concerned with financial markets. In 2014, Aitken was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of his significant service to the business and finance sector, particularly to market surveillance and fraud detection technologies, and to education.
Industry appointments
Chief Scientist, RoZetta Institute, www.rozetta.com.au; July 2018 - Present
The Microstructure of the Australian Stock Exchange: An Introduction, with A. Frino, E. Jarnecic, M. McCorry and R. Winn, Asia-Pacific Capital Markets Foundation, Book Series 1997.
Investing on the Australian Sharemarket, with A Burrowes and R Mullholland, Macmillan Publishing Company, December 1983
The Development of Accounting Theory - Significant Contributors to Accounting Thought in the 20th Century with M Gaffikin, Garland Publishing Company, December 1982. Reprinted 2013
