  This editorial article partially informs the algorithmic trading community
about launching of the new journal "Algorithmic Trading and Controls" (ATC).
ATC is an online open-access journal that publishes novel works on algorithmic
trading and its control methodologies. In this inaugural article, we discuss
nine major challenges that contemporary Algo trading faces. There is nothing
superstitiously magical about the number "nine," but so is any other one.
Several of these challenges are at the strategy level, including for example,
trading of illiquid securities or optimal portfolio execution. Others are more
at the level of risk management and controls, such as on how to develop
automated controls, testing and simulations. The editorial views could be
inevitably personal and biased, but have been explored with the most innocent
intention of contributing to this important field in modern financial services
and technologies.
