Jerrell Watts

Jerrell Watts is the Head of Algorithmic Trading at Point72.

Mr. Watts has over two decades of experience in systematic and quantitative trading across a wide range of financial products, including equities, options, futures, bonds, and currencies. Prior to joining Point72 in 2017, Mr. Watts served in quantitative research roles at Citadel and Citadel Securities, including as the Head of Algorithmic Execution and Order Routing at Citadel. Prior to Citadel, he was a managing director and high frequency portfolio manager at Merrill Lynch. Before Merrill Lynch, he was the founder and head of the automated market making effort in equity options at Lehman Brothers, having previously worked on a similar project at Morgan Stanley. Mr. Watts began his career in finance as a quantitative developer at D. E. Shaw & Co.

Mr. Watts holds a BS in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin, and an MS and PhD in computer science from the California Institute of Technology. His master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation were both on topics related to parallel computing. He continues to be involved with both institutions, serving on the Information Science and Technology Council at the California Institute of Technology and previously serving on the Computer Science Department Advisory Council at the University of Texas at Austin.