Tower Research has appointed former Millennium executive Marvin Arteaga as head of mid-frequency trading strategies, strengthening its quantitative investment capabilities as competition intensifies among systematic trading firms, according to a report by eFinancialCareers.

Arteaga joins the New York-based firm after 12 years at Millennium, where he primarily served as head of algorithmic execution technologies. He previously spent seven years developing algorithmic trading systems at Bank of America and most recently held a liquidity provision technology role at Millennium.

The appointment supports Tower's expansion into mid-frequency trading, which involves holding positions for periods ranging from minutes to days, compared with the microsecond execution horizons associated with high-frequency trading. The strategy increasingly relies on machine learning, sophisticated data analysis and substantial computing infrastructure to identify trading opportunities.

Tower's investment in mid-frequency capabilities follows similar developments at quantitative trading firms including Jane Street and Hudson River Trading, as competition and diminishing returns from ultra-low-latency strategies encourage greater diversification into longer-horizon systematic investments.

The hire also follows several senior moves between Tower and Millennium. Earlier this year, Millennium recruited Tower's former chief technology officer Alexandre Fournier to develop low-latency trading infrastructure, while Wesley Chen, Tower's former co-head of investment-grade credit trading, joined Millennium as a portfolio manager in June.

The appointments highlight intensifying competition between hedge funds and proprietary trading firms for quantitative investment and technology specialists as both sectors expand their systematic trading capabilities.