Case Studies

This 16-page Executive Summary is free to download and includes the Prologue, Introduction, Data Sample, Companies Mentioned, Table of Contents, and Table of Exhibits sections of the case study.

In this 84-page, 103-exhibit case study - "D. E. Shaw & Co., Inc. - Strategy Frame" - Alphacution presents a new, next-level analysis on one of the most legendary quantitative hedge fund managers of them all: D. E. Shaw & Co. Based on a proprietary version of 13F data that has been jointly developed over years with a stealth-mode data partner, this case study leverages a data sample spanning 50 quarters, comprised of 305,789 positions, and based on 15,063 unique...

In this 118-page, 145-exhibit case study – “US Equity Market Macrostructure Evolution: The Temple of Financial Fantasy” – Alphacution presents its case for how the adoption of technology by a subset of leading proprietary trading firms have leveraged the regulatory framework over the past 20 years to permanently alter and distort the US equity market to the point of a farcical rivalry between two separate and distinct “stock markets” that are animated by two competing realities. The first reality is...

In this 33-page, 32-exhibit case study, “Headlands Technologies: Return of the Pioneers," Alphacution details the profound paradox of one of the newest liquidity providers in US equities while simultaneously being one of its most consequential pioneers. Follow Matt Andresen's journey from Island ECN to the early incarnation of Citadel Securities to the launch of Headlands, where he and team spent a decade - racking up success after success as a liquidity provider in other products, asset classes, and regions -...

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 notional option position value, long option contracts, and average long option contracts per position (aggregated per underlying) - all of which, as of September 30,...

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,...

In this 72-page, 75-exhibit, 17,400-word case study, "The Transformation of Belvedere," Alphacution publishes its findings on equity index option specialist, Chicago-based Belvedere Trading. Founded in 2002 with a current team of ~300 employees, Belvedere's story represents a unique addition to the Alphacution research library due to the significant strategy transformation it appears to have undergone over the past few years while maintaining its strengths in SPX options. This case study also showcases certain achievements, trading revenue (sample), risk framework, and...