Hudson River Trading Finally Sets A Hook

No doubt, options are the rage. Have been for a few years, thanks to an increasingly emboldened, crowd-sourced army of retail warriors - and timely new product developments by a consortium of exchanges, influential market makers, and other notable players in US equity options... The competition to play this game as a market maker is fierce. The cost of complexity makes this game difficult for smaller players - some of them highly experienced and long-time players - to afford to play successfully anymore. Some of these smaller players have voluntarily exited - or outright failed... Hudson River Trading, one of the speed demons originally confined largely to order flows on public exchanges (prior to its acquisition of Sun Trading in Jan 2018), appears - finally - to be defying those odds in options... In this Feed post, Alphacution paints a detailed picture by taking the "scenic route" through the roster of leading prop firms and hedge funds that enjoy significant share and wield significant influence in US equity options as context for HRT's latest achievements, competitive positioning, and challenges ahead...