Susquehanna Securities

Case Study: Susquehanna Securities – US Listed Equity Derivatives Share, 2014-2023

In this brief 6-page, 6-exhibit case study teaser, Alphacution presents its estimates for the overall market share of US listed equity derivatives volume represented by Susquehanna Securities, the affiliate of legendary options trading powerhouse, Susquehanna International Group (SIG), that’s home to the group’s US market making operation. This report is presented in the context of Alphacution’s forthcoming case study on option market makers’ share of US listed equity derivatives which will include Alphacution’s market share estimates for Citadel Securities, Optiver US, LLC, and IMC Financial Markets, among many others...

By |2024-03-03T18:30:41-05:00February 29th, 2024|Open|

According to D. E. Shaw, RenTech and Other Legends: Hindsight is Not 2020

"Quality means doing it right when no one is looking."Henry Ford I couldn't find the exact reference, but sometime between about 2010 and 2015 I wrote (for TABB Group) that when the market regime eventually shifted from the core drivers of the long, low volatility period of the post-GFC era, many quant models would become disoriented and their performance would suffer. This is simply because the behavioral cues of the new chapter would not be embedded in the historical market data of the prior period upon which those models had been trained. Well, that scenario finally played out this year... So, instead of following the well-worn tradition of preparing a lengthy "Year in Review" post on market highlights and lowlights as we bring this historically bizarre and disorienting year to a close, I thought to let a series of illustrations from some of the world's most legendary players show you symbols for how their year appears to have gone (through Q3 2020) and, by implication, how broad groupings of strategies [...]

By |2020-12-23T21:35:10-05:00December 22nd, 2020|For Subscribers|

Susquehanna Securities and the Hidden Stat Arb Strategy

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.."Plutarch The comment has been made here before, likely more than once: As we go along the path of our research, our ability to see - to interpret the data, and the shapes that are formed from that data - tends to improve. This is not only true of newer shapes forged from amalgamations of newer data - and additional sources - but of older shapes, as well. Recently, I stumbled over a series of charts first published in July 2019 in the Feed post, "Ranking Strategy Speed for Top Quants, Market Makers," which remains among our more fascinating discoveries. Therein, we compared average stock position sizing for a list of notable trading and hedge fund firms, from Renaissance Technologies (RenTech), D. E. Shaw, and Two Sigma to Jane Street, Hudson River Trading (HRT), and Tower Research Capital (TRC). Citadel Securities and Susquehanna Securities were in the mix, as well. The rankings were roughly delineated between [...]

By |2023-08-24T13:22:06-04:00December 1st, 2020|For Subscribers|

HAP Trading’s Book: Hiding in Plain Sight

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, that lives within the means available and works cooperatively against common threats."Charles Darwin Consider that the capital markets are like an evolving ecosystem wherein the players - from market makers to hedge funds to the largest asset managers, among others - are like various species of creature. Depending on environment conditions and levels of adaptability, some species thrive and some don't... On the extinction front, just today Bloomberg reported that York Capital Management's founder, Jamie Dinan, announced that he would be existing the firm's hedge fund strategies thus joining other high-profile hedge fund exits for the year, including John Paulson of Paulson & Co and Louis Bacon of Moore Capital Management and a growing list of legends and luminaries who have already retreated from the hedge fund business. In parallel, this event strengthens Alphacution's core thesis about the finite capacity of alpha, the [...]

By |2020-12-03T20:38:56-05:00November 24th, 2020|For Subscribers|

Runaway Concentration Risks in US Option Markets

“The future is a choice between utopia and oblivion. Whether it is to be utopia or oblivion will be a touch and go relay race right up to the final moment…” – Buckminster Fuller On September 23rd, the Financial Times reported, “Citigroup halts market making in retail options” in an apparent response to the challenges brought about by the era of zero-commission retail trading; an era that is swiftly nearing its one year anniversary. Among the more notable impacts of this Citi news, the fact that Morgan Stanley now remains as the sole major Wall Street bank still standing as an intermediary for retail option flows ranks high. Truth be told, it ranks second only to a backdrop of creeping concentration as bulge players like Citi and Barclays before them and Goldman before them and others before them – including those that have been winding down their cash equities businesses – have punted on their options businesses because it has become so mind-numbingly complicated and expensive to make money in [...]

By |2020-10-02T16:17:22-04:00September 23rd, 2020|For Subscribers|