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When Market Makers Ate Their Own…

Right out of the gate, this story might emit a whiff of last year's news. Maybe. But, that sense would only last until you realize that this is also a template for improving predictions about future events. And, that kind of predictive power relies upon the bet that more markets and opportunities are becoming winner-take-all in the digital era... (Hint: As the functioning of markets - and other economic opportunities - become more "digital," a single leader can emerge in that market. This is how we end up with the "FANG's" - Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google. It's also how US equity markets end up with ~80% lit market-making flows being split between Virtu and Citadel. Here are some facts to fill in the background: In the three years beginning 2006, the Timber Hill market making unit of Interactive Brokers Group (IB) had an annual revenue run rate of around $1 billion, peaking at over $1.3 billion in 2008. By 2017, Timber Hill's revenue run rate had declined 94% to [...]

By |2020-10-14T21:51:05-04:00July 18th, 2018|For Subscribers|
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@DeutscheBank + @HPE: Case Study on Impacts

"Pay attention to what I say, not what I do..." Let's return to the bonus chart slipped in at the end of the recent post @DeutscheBank: Three-Card Monte and Other Confidence Games (For maximum context and extra credit, you can pick up the thread about Deutsche Bank from the beginning in March 2016 here). Bottom line: We are fascinated with the idea of detecting the impacts of the IT outsourcing deal that DB and HPE entered into in early 2015. The main questions that keep coming to mind are these: Is this deal a template for other large banks? Does it save money? Or, is its value to be found in other metrics, like enhanced performance or boosts in innovation? And, based on the level of transparency provided by DB (which is one of our best bank models), can we even detect the impacts of this arrangement? The answer to this last question is what brings us to this post... Right up front, we can say, yes - generically, speaking [...]

By |2020-08-17T07:14:07-04:00July 16th, 2018|For Subscribers|
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@DeutscheBank: Three-Card Monte and Other Confidence Games

"Pay attention to what I say, not what I do..." More and more - over decades of practice - this opening statement has become the golden rule of marketing and communications, no matter if that "marcom" strategy is being applied in the context of finance, economics, politics - or, any other blood sport. Reason being: If you believe that perception is reality, then perception can have real economic consequences. However, with today's data ubiquity and resulting overload, we have the possibility of infinite perceptions and very little sense of reality... No one is truly to blame for this predicament. We have all conspired - most of us tacitly, some of us more directly - to participant in this confidence game. And so, when Alphacution picks out certain names, it is only to shed light on examples of how the game is played and not to pass judgement on the player(s) - since we are all more or less complicit... (As it turns out, Deutsche Bank is one of our best [...]

By |2020-08-17T07:14:07-04:00June 26th, 2018|For Subscribers|
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Virtu: Q1-2018 Update on Extremes

With volatility spiking in Q1 of 2018 - and the successful porting of KCG's intellectual property (IP) prior to that in late 2017 - VIRT earned a welcomed reprieve from the conditions of recent quarters, as we predicted here (and elsewhere prior to that). In the exhibit below, Alphacution's as-if modeling of the combined entity - Virtu + KCG pre-Q3 2017 - yields a level of net trading income that would not have been seen since Q1-2016. Meanwhile, Alphacution's tracking of adjusted net trading income per employee - a proxy for our common look at revenue per employee (RPE) - starkly illustrates the path through the most recent maneuvers: Persistent declines in top line "productivity" since its most recent peak in early 2015 ultimately led to the acquisition of KCG, which closed in July 2017. Swift transfer of KCG's IP onto Virtu's infrastructure along with elimination of redundant technology and human capital allowed this productivity measure to bounce off its lows in Q3 2017 to finish the year as strongly [...]

By |2020-10-14T21:45:13-04:00May 15th, 2018|For Subscribers|
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@GoldmanSachs, @RBC: First to Put the #GFC in the Rear-view Mirror

Before we dig into the latest numbers, let's level set the motivations here because, in the helter-skelter nature of most people's day, some of this analysis tends to get brushed aside as pedestrian. There is only so much one can do to make a headcount index sexy and provocative. But, this is something folks should be paying attention to. Banks are the biggest employers, the largest providers of services, and the most voracious consumers of technology in the global financial services ecosystem. As innovations strip away their dominance and incumbencies, people should want to know how the dominoes are going to fall because these players are currently interconnected with most everything that goes on in this space... Anyway, preamble (and gentle finger-wagging) aside, here's the setup: Why do we care so much about tracking bulge bank headcount? There are at least two reasons. The first is, well, a bit pedestrian, actually: Since we use headcount to normalize the variance in scale between banks (and other #fintech buyers) in order to [...]

By |2020-08-17T07:14:07-04:00April 26th, 2018|For Subscribers|
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What Does Citadel* Spend on Technology?

Take a deep breath... Focus your attention... Now, consider that there are only about five people on the face of the planet who actually know the answer to our opening question - What does Citadel spend on technology?  Moreover, someone would likely need to hold one of these folks at gunpoint for that executive to spill those beans. The same scenario plays out for a firm like Millennium or DRW or Jump Trading or Two Sigma or IMC or any other privately-held manager. Only a hand full of the most senior people at any one of these mythological shops actually knows the answer to the question: What does [manager name here] spend on technology? Now, if we took one giant step further into the realm of absurdity, and wanted to know what any two or more of these players spend on technology - essentially attempting to answer the question: What does any Manager X spend on technology? - then the odds become significantly more improbable. What are the odds that [...]

By |2020-10-14T21:51:26-04:00April 18th, 2018|For Subscribers|
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Nasdaq and the Case of the Missing Market Data

In late April 2017, we noticed a new string of dominoes falling at the fast, automated end of the trading spectrum: With Virtu about to gobble up KCG - not to mention additional consolidations of principal trading groups like RGM Advisors (to DRW), Timber Hill (to Two Sigma) and Chopper Trading (to DRW), among others - it seemed pretty clear that one of the next dominos to fall would be in the direct-feed market data space. The question was: To what degree? (See: "Nasdaq Under Virtu Market Data Axe," April 28, 2017) And yet, when we went back to look - via updating our Nasdaq model - this picture showed up: As Paul Harvey used to say: "...And now the rest of the story..." Obviously this trajectory is the opposite of what was expected. Better yet, in a dictionary somewhere is this chart - at least, of late - next to the words, "fairly smooth sailing" or "strong growth." Over the last few years, data products (and the growth in [...]

By |2020-10-14T21:52:05-04:00March 22nd, 2018|For Subscribers|
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The State of Speed: A Virtu-KCG Post-Mortem

When the deal between Virtu Financial and KCG Holdings was announced in March 2017, we offered the following read of the motivations behind the announcement: Average daily adjusted net trading revenue for Q4-2016 has returned to levels not seen since late 2013 / early 2014. Chances are quite high that persistent low volatility during Q1-2017 has caused these figure to fall back to pre-2013 levels. A situation like that needs a good distraction; something that can change the narrative and allow for lots of financial restructuring and restatements.  Voila! Try to take out one of your nearest competitors… Now, with the deal completed as of July 2017, and Virtu now reporting full year 2017 highlights, we took some time to update and combine our Virtu and KCG models. Here's what's notable about this latest update: The combined financials show some signs of improvement (or, at least, stabilization), however, the market landscape has continued to deteriorate: Over the 28-year life of CBOE's volatility index (VIX) - aka the "fear gauge" - 2017 [...]

By |2020-10-14T21:45:33-04:00February 8th, 2018|For Subscribers|
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Bulge Bank Headcount Index – Q4/2017

Though still tracking at levels last seen in early 2007, Alphacution's index of "bulge bank" headcount - updated through year-end 2017 - continues to walk a tight rope of relative stability as it has continued to do so for most of the past 8 quarters (see exhibit below). This news also seems to track with the prevailing belief and commentary that the US economy is in relatively good shape - if not, at least, stable. As always, a look into the details - and specific banks - yields a more vivid story: For starters, and including Wells Fargo & Company (WFC), 5 of the 10 banks in this analysis are within 5% of their maximum headcount over the past 45 quarters. (Goldman Sachs and RBC are within 1%.) Meanwhile, with the index down approximately 150,000 employees from its high water mark in mid-2011, Citigroup and BAML have shrunk by 166,000 and 81,000, respectively, from their maximums. Rankings of individual bank headcount indices can be found below... WFC, the largest US [...]

By |2020-08-17T07:14:08-04:00January 16th, 2018|For Subscribers|
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Broker Tech Spend Speaks Volumes

Broker spending on technology is one of those topics that rises to the top of the headlines from time to time, particularly given how much the market landscape has shifted in the past several years - and how competitive, regulatory, and new market drivers threaten to change that landscape even more along the road ahead. So, during the course of developing research on a related topic, we had occasion to expand our modeling in the area of market makers, broker-dealers, and related specialist execution technologies - and stumbled upon a different lens through which to evaluate "broker" spending patterns. In the following chart, we share a common format for presenting these kinds of figures; a ranking of 5-year average total technology spending by 9 public broker and broker-like companies. Simple output.  Mildly interesting. Ten's or hundred's of millions of dollars spent on technology is notable. But, not particularly illuminating. However, as we benchmarked technology spending using employee headcounts - a technique we use regularly - the picture packs an entirely [...]

By |2020-08-17T07:14:08-04:00October 19th, 2017|For Subscribers|
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