XTX Markets

Alphacution Publishes “XTX [Invades] Markets” Case Study

In this 87-page, 83-exhibit, 22,700-word case study, "XTX [Invades] Markets," Alphacution publishes its findings - a truly incredible story - about the youngest proprietary trading company to cross the $1 billion revenue threshold in the modern markets era - and the founder, Alex Gerko, who has led that run. Based in London and breaking into the top 10 ranks of overall FX traders before its second birthday, conventional reporting states that XTX Markets Limited was spun out of quant hedge fund manager, GSA Capital Partners, in 2015. This is mostly true. However, the full story of Gerko and his XTX group has never properly been told. In this case study, Alphacution has gone further than it’s ever gone before. Finding data in places like Singapore, France, and India - places where XTX has staked satellites of Gerko’s vision - to paint a clearer picture of how, and maybe why, the company has managed to become so expansive in such a short period of time. Alphacution will not be the last to tell a more complete version of XTX’s story, but we may be the first to attempt it. Our version of that story, the beginnings of which are known to very few insiders, starts in October 2010... This and related case studies are available to premium subscribers or via individual document purchase.

By |2022-10-31T12:45:02-04:00October 30th, 2022|For Subscribers|

Note to The Market Structure Club on Comparative Order Routing Rates

Following an impromptu gaggle of market structure nerds on the new social media app, Clubhouse, featuring Larry Tabb (Head of Market Structure Research, Bloomberg Intelligence) and Alex Gerko (CEO, XTX Markets), Alphacution offers a comparative ranking of 2020 retail order routing rates...

By |2021-05-14T22:56:19-04:00March 17th, 2021|For Subscribers|

XTX Markets: Lessons in Strategy Geometry – Part II

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.”Abraham Lincoln In Part I of our Lessons in Strategy Geometry concept, we performed a comparative analysis between the shapes of 13F position rankings for HRT Financial, LLC (an affiliate of Hudson River Trading, LLC; the subject of our next deep-dive case study which is in the oven and almost fully baked, I promise), Latour Trading, LLC, and TRC Investments, LLC (both of which are affiliates of Tower Research Capital, LLC). In that introductory Feed post, our goal was mainly to point out what amounts to underlying differences in strategy, particularly given how unique the Tower "shapes" appeared to be relative to others we had modeled. We didn't go into to much detail beyond that with the idea that it would be more useful to work through possible insights step by step... So, here's a next step: Founded in 2015, XTX Markets, Ltd is one of a very short list of up-and-coming proprietary [...]

By |2021-01-14T00:54:31-05:00January 13th, 2021|For Subscribers|

A Flock of Canaries: From Allston to XTX

"You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case." - Ken Kesey   If you believe - as we do - that everything is connected to everything else, then it stands to reason that all events have potential to be seen as the proverbial canary in the coal mine. Therefore, what we really need to do is notice stuff and connect dots. Here's a few of our latest observations... On February 10, 2020, Bloomberg reported "high-frequency firm Allston cuts employees amid low volatility," and further noted that this move follows XR Trading's 10% headcount reduction in late 2019. This got us thinking about the tier of smaller to mid-sized proprietary trading firms and if any of the available data (which currently tends to be US equities-centric) provide clues as to the health of those firms - as well as that space in the market ecosystem (where prop firms and market makers reside) that we typically call [...]

By |2020-08-17T07:14:02-04:00February 20th, 2020|For Subscribers|