Robinhood’s Dirty Little Secret
Alphacution makes its case for where new market structure rules should, at the very least, be successful - as well as a clue for how our research influenced (and altered) Robinhood's business model...
The Mother of All PFOF Charts – Q3 2022 Edition, Part II
Part II - Equity PFOF Volumes / Wholesaler Market Shares: Alphacution organizes and distills 33 months of payment for order flow (PFOF) data from 14 retail brokers and 13 wholesale market makers to place a wide-angle frame around the US Securities and Exchange Commission's upcoming proposals for a major equities market structure overhaul...
The Mother of All PFOF Charts – Q3 2022 Edition, Part I
Alphacution organizes and distills 33 months of payment for order flow (PFOF) data from 14 retail brokers and 13 wholesale market makers to place a wide-angle frame around the US Securities and Exchange Commission's upcoming proposals for a major equities market structure overhaul...
Fork It! UBS Securities Exiting Retail Wholesaling
We've seen it coming for a long time. There were many clues along the way from which to anchor a prediction. Now, the evidence is too dramatic to ignore: UBS Securities is exiting the retail equity wholesale market making business. Alphacution rolls out its case, along with other key findings...
Virtu Financial’s Latest Storyboard
Alphacution updates its ongoing review of Virtu Financial with the latest 2022 financial and operational data...
Virtu and Corporate Bonds: 2021 Strategy Analysis
Based on recently reported data for year-end 2021, Alphacution updates its ongoing strategy analysis for leading wholesale market maker, Virtu Financial...
Option Markets: How (Real, Synthetic) Whales Wag The Dog…
US listed markets have become inverted, with option volumes consistently exceeding stock volumes in 2021. Alphacution presents a hypothesis about real and synthetic whales that influence markets via options - as well as evidence of market maker activity beneath it all...
Virtu Americas: Lessons in Risk Disposal (Updated)
Alphacution delivers a new comparison of Virtu Americas and Citadel Securities to explore the objectives of risk warehousing and risk disposal...
Got Hood-lash Yet? 2020 Order Routing Revenue – Part I
This is the fuel that ignites the chaos. Without it, the New Market Kamikazes run into the friction that keeps the rubber on the road...
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 [...]
