Alphacution solves one of a few key mysteries that have lingered for the past couple years. Turns out, the solution is indirectly tied to other players in Alphacution's fiercely competitive structural alpha zone...
Alphacution updates its "retail option flow factor" analysis, in part, as preparation for Robinhood's upcoming Q3 2021 earnings release...
First HRT. Then Jump. Now, Optiver joins the chorus representing a collective "squeal" by a subset of secretive prop firms attempting to influence changes to US equity and options market structure...
On a lazy Thursday afternoon leading up to the US 4th of July holiday weekend, Robinhood unveils its IPO (S-1) document to the world. Here are some early highlights and analysis that can only be found at Alphacution...
Similar to its early development of a retail stock flow factor, Alphacution turns its attention to measuring retail participation in options. As expected, the early visuals are illuminating...
The missing data finally showed up, and that led us to this comparison of Optiver US and IMC Financial Markets through year-end 2020...
In a world of ultra-fierce competition among proprietary traders, it has become increasingly challenging for newer, smaller players to succeed. We have been keeping a close eye on two players who appear to be bucking this trend above the rest. One of them is option market maker, Simplex Trading. In this Feed post, Alphacution showcases the latest 13F reporting to test for signals of Simplex's ongoing success...
There are many ways to rank prop firms and market makers, given the right data. However, depending on the market or the metric used, rankings will differ. Outside of our case studies, here are some figures we've never shared on the Feed, and the implications are likely to be quite consequential for the road ahead...
"What's really happening here is that instead of people becoming engaged in finance when they're 40, 50, 60 or whatever, they're finally starting to learn that - hey - this is really cool. And so, we have an entire generation now which is not only going to support capitalism, it's going to accelerate the growth in free markets and [provide] massive amounts of liquidity so that everybody out there is going to benefit. This is the best thing to happen to the global economy in three or four decades. Getting millennials engaged in finance is transformational."Tom Sosnoff, co-founder, Tastytrade; on CNBC Squawk Box, January 29, 2021 in response to a question about the "democratization of finance" and the status of capitalism With all the craziness this week around GameStop, Robinhood and the whole STONKS meme, an event from last week is at risk of being swept under the rug. So, I wanted to add this one to the Feed as a marker before we lose the thread entirely. Here's the [...]
“You wanna know which ring is my favorite? The next one.”Tom Brady The detailed exhibit presented at the bottom of this Feed post is 1) featured in our just-published case study, "The Rise of Hudson River Trading," 2) an expanded version of an already somewhat outdated exhibit originally published in our "History of Jane Street" case study (below), and 3) only an excerpt of a much larger global map of entities that Alphacution has been developing to be featured in upcoming research, culminating in a comprehensive case study on the global proprietary trading community later this year... (Fingers crossed.) For now, I want to emphasize that this is not a ranking by anything other than founding year, and therefore, is simply designated as "25 Leading Prop Firms." Otherwise, it would have been more accurately - and provocatively - named, "Top 25 Prop Firms." Yes, the largest - and most dominant - players are in here. But, this list is also a bit US-centric, does not include any APAC players or [...]
