Ranking Robinhood’s Wholesale Market Makers
Alphacution's analysis and modeling of Robinhood's latest financial disclosures leads to a ranking of its wholesale market makers, along with a couple important side bars...
Susquehanna’s Multi-Billion Dollar and Optionless Fundamental Strategy
Alphacution expands its library of research on legendary option market maker Susquehanna International Group (SIG) with this introduction to affiliate Susquehanna Fundamental Investments (SFI)...
The Cryptomancers And The Half-Life of a Heyday
What is the half-life of a heyday? In the land of crypto market making, it might be shorter than you think. Alphacution makes its case off the back of Coinbase data garnished with a couple recent news events...
The Crypto Train: Citadel Securities Succumbs to FOMO
A first-of-its-kind outside investment from Silicon Valley venture heavyweights into Citadel Securities is a significant event, particularly for possible future competitors in crypto markets. But, the transaction itself didn't need to be exposed. So, why was it? Was this news or strategic communications? Alphacution weighs in...
Alphacution Publishes “Simplex Trading, Unadjusted”
In this 67-page, 64-exhibit chart book, “Simplex Trading, Unadjusted,” Alphacution borrows the spotlight from the record-setting volumes in the US options market for 2021 and focuses it in on one of the key – yet, relatively little known – players in the space: option market maker, Simplex Trading, LLC. Taking some of its recent modeling upgrades for an initial spin, Alphacution performs its unique brand of visual display on public regulatory data to present what is likely to be an unprecedented review of such a secretive player operating in such a complex arena like Simplex.
HOOD-lashed! Crypto PFOF is Here…
Like the Lock Ness monster and Big Foot, Alphacution has found evidence of crypto PFOF...
Fix the Spread! A Comparison of Price Improvement by Wholesale Market Makers
Alphacution expands upon an outstanding analysis by BestEx Research on PFOF with additional context on price improvement by leading wholesale market makers.
Bloomberg, Forbes: Alphacution Scores Press Twofer
"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."Ernest Hemingway Tuesday, April 6, 2021 was a good day for Alphacution in the press... The morning started with a feature by Bloomberg Editor Tom Maloney, "Citadel Gets the Spotlight," wherein he tells the story of Ken Griffin and Citadel Securities' rise as major trading force in the post GFC landscape and - most notably since GameStop - as a recent focal point of politicians and regulators. (I'm sure Ken is not thrilled with the title image.) Here at Alphacution, this article will be remembered primarily for two things: First, for providing a few useful financial tidbits - and, second, for placing a few of our words in the largest font in our history to date - Should it have been "Amazonization" or "Amazonification"? Either way, you get the gist... One more thing on this: I may have told this tale before, but after throwing an unsolicited sharp elbow in Tom's direction in our December [...]
Now You See Me: What The Bloomberg Opinion Guy Misses About Market Structure Mechanics
Leveraging numbers and narrative, Alphacution builds a higher-dimension analysis of market structure mechanics on top of Bloomberg Opinion's Matt Levine's recent manifesto on payment for order flow (PFOF). Disclaimer: No unsolicited elbows were thrown during the creation of this Feed post...
Outlook 2021: The Drunk-on-Impunity Mania Arrives
"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by avoiding it today."Abraham Lincoln With protestors storming the U.S. Capital - some of which breaching the outer doors and freely strolling the U.S. Senate floor - as surreal and unprecedented backdrop, I sit down to organize a sketch of Alphacution's outlook for the year ahead, starting with a very wide lens: The U.S. economy - much like the rest of the other "developed world" economies - is naturally weaker than the meticulously curated employment and productivity numbers suggest. Technology adoption (from workflow automation to social media distraction), growing debt burdens, ossified resource allocation practices, cross-region labor arbitrage, deteriorating infrastructure, and other factors all converge to deteriorate "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for a growing portion of the population. The COVID pandemic of 2020 - and however long it remains disruptive throughout 2021 as vaccines are being rolled out - acts as an accelerant of many of these factors. Ours is a deteriorating version of capitalism. Symptoms emblematic of the stage [...]
