In this Feed post, Alphacution brings together a wider-than-usual Overton window of macro-economic and market macro-structure factors to explain an era of extremes - including the "Bitcoin product expansion mania", all-time highs in off-exchange US stock trading, and new evidence for "wag-the-dog" impacts of options - at the beginning of the new Trump 2.0 era...
In this 27-page, 20-exhibit case study, “US Equity Options – Top 100 Institutional Customer List, Q3 2024,” Alphacution ranks a group of 111 institutional US equity option participants – including banks, brokers, hedge funds, asset managers, and proprietary trading firms – by 5 factors, including total notional long option value, long option positions, average long option position value, long option contracts, and average long option contracts per position – all of which, as of September 30, 2024. This study complements Alphacution’s case study, “US Equity Option Market Makers: Core Strategies and Market Shares.” This and related case studies are available to premium and enterprise subscribers or via individual document purchase… A link for Enterprise subscribers – with PDF download rights – will be posted shortly…
Last week, the Financial Times was first to report that BlackRock, the largest overall asset manager in the world (at ~$11.5 trillion), was in early talks to buy a minority stake in Izzy Englander's Millennium Management, one of the largest hedge funds in the world (at ~$67.9 billion). Though there is no way of knowing the outcome of this news at this time, Alphacution presents its analysis of the potential meaning and impacts of this partnership...
Last week, the Financial Times was first to report that BlackRock, the largest overall asset manager in the world (at ~$11.5 trillion), was in early talks to buy a minority stake in Izzy Englander's Millennium Management, one of the largest hedge funds in the world (at ~$67.9 billion). Though there is no way of knowing the outcome of this news at this time, Alphacution presents its analysis of the potential meaning and impacts of this partnership...
One of the more fascinating discoveries made in Alphacution's recently published case studies on US Equity Option Market Makers comes to us from Wolverine Trading...
One of the more fascinating discoveries made in Alphacution's recently published case studies on US Equity Option Market Makers comes to us from Wolverine Trading...
Alphacution participates in two high profile articles - on XTX Markets and Susquehanna International Group - published by the Financial Times series "new titans of Wall Street" series...
In this 187-page, 213-exhibit, 45,000-word case study, “US Equity Option Market Makers: Core Strategies and Market Shares, 2019 – 2023,” Alphacution publishes its most comprehensive analysis to date based on the modeling of 17 proprietary trading firms who serve variously as market makers in US equity derivatives across the backdrop of 5 interconnected product classes in futures and options. The objective of this research project was to shed new light on US equity option market mechanics by exploring the products, players and strategies that comprise the dramatic increase in total contract volume – with specific emphasis on the 5-year focus period, 2019 – 2023 , that symbolizes the beginning of a new era in US equity option trading… After a detailed introductory setup, this report is organized in 3 sections: First, market composition is presented to showcase the volumes and interconnected nature of all relevant US equity derivative product classes. Second, a new strategy factor library is leveraged to highlight core strategy preferences of the 17 members of the “featured option market making group,” wherever applicable. And third, based on interpretations from the prior sections, the output of a 2-factor model, that hinges on estimates of weighted average annual trading velocity per market maker, drives the volume share estimates – together, all of which yielding innumerable discoveries and insights about these players and this ecosystem… Though the unprecedented scale of this case study is indicative, this is Alphacution’s current version of a masterpiece; the new crown jewel in a unique research library developed by hand, exclusively with publicly-available data (with the exception of certain daily market data samples), over years of consistent focus, patience and curiosity… This and related case studies are available to premium subscribers and enterprise clients or via individual document purchase…
Against the rapidly evolving composition of products and customers in the US equity option market during a 5-year focus period, 2019 - 2023, Alphacution assembled, normalized, and integrated several publicly-available datasets to take the unprecedented step of modeling and analyzing a group of 17 proprietary trading firms – all of which are registered broker-dealers trading securities for their own account – individually and as a group… In this Feed post, Alphacution presents a few "teasers" from its upcoming case study on US Equity Option Market Makers...
Jane Street wedges its way into retail options. It's early. The numbers are small. But, they are a powerhouse with competitive advantages. Alphacution makes its case for what could happen here...
