Market Share Analysis: Option Market Makers
Based on new and updated modeling for a group of option market makers - including Group One Trading, Wolverine Trading, and Cutler Group - Alphacution shares new perspective on market share...
Maven Securities Reaches Escape Velocity
This week, Alphacution turns its attention to a fascinating story in the making: London-based market maker and proprietary trading firm, Maven Securities Limited.
Alphacution Publishes “The Chicago Trading Company” Case Study
In this 71-page, 69-exhibit chart book, “The Chicago Trading Company,” Alphacution continues its focus on the explosion of activity in US option markets with a deep dive into another leading option trading firm, CTC, LLC. In this report, Alphacution leverages evolving modeling capabilities to explore its first example of a proprietary trading firm with core concentration in index options along with the peripheral suite of cash, futures and other option products used to capture volatility arbitrage opportunities. Furthermore, this research sets the stage to potentially identify (and rank) other large index option players with similar strategies where the regulatory data is not specifically disclosing exposures to index options. The complete chart book is available to premium subscribers or via individual document purchase.
Virtu and Corporate Bonds: 2021 Strategy Analysis
Based on recently reported data for year-end 2021, Alphacution updates its ongoing strategy analysis for leading wholesale market maker, Virtu Financial...
Pyth Network: (More Than) Crypto’s Consolidated Tape?
Pyth Network may be crypto's answer to a consolidated tape, but is it - could it be - more than that?
A Regulatory Outlook for Off-Exchange Market Makers in the Aftermath of the GameStop Hearings
Alphacution contributor, Stanislav Dolgopolov, provides a detailed review of potential regulatory issues - including payment for order flow (PFOF), the multiplicity of roles of off-exchange market makers, and their informational advantages, among others - that may receive new scrutiny in the aftermath of the GameStop congressional hearings.
Measuring Structural Alpha Capacity in the Global ETP Market
Thanks to reporting from our friends at Flow Traders, Alphacution walks through a storyboard of ETP market attributes to arrive at an estimate for the structural (market making) revenue potential of the global and regional ETP markets...
Simplex Trading: Against the Odds
“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”Henry Ford On occasion, we have framed the world's leading proprietary trading firms with the following graphic: And, as many of you know, this is the terrain upon which we have focused a notable component of our attention to date - and likely where we will place a disproportionate share of our attention going forward. This is partly due to the fact that this group bears out-sized responsibility for a quiet cascade of impacts throughout the global markets ecosystem, and partly because there are so few others that have managed to marry such scale with such creativity. This dynamic is made more notable by the idea that winner-take-all market dynamics that tend to reinforce an "incumbency of incumbents" make such an ascension less likely than the previous unlikeliness from all the yesterdays before... That said, based on our ongoing surveillance of the broader landscape, there are always exceptions. If you watch [...]
Virtu Financial: Master Exploder, Part I
"As you think, so shall you become." - Bruce Lee Like a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest, sometimes the scenario is grim. And yet sometimes, the tailwinds converge in your favor - like a three-legged man in an ass kicking contest - and the scenario presents itself very much to the contrary... Historically, Alphacution has not been shy about pointing out the former. Who can forget "Virtu Financial: The Frying Pan and the Fire" from August 2019; a favorite of @Dougielarge, for sure? But, to give credit where credit is due, this story is quintessentially about the latter scenario: Today (May 7), Virtu Financial reported Q1 2020 earnings and, given an extra appetizer of preview from the company on March 20, it was - to borrow a riff from Tenacious D - "The. Best. Quarter. Ever. Period!" Now, it's no secret to anybody on the planet why a strong Q1 was to be expected from Virtu because nearly everyone on the planet is directly impacted by the [...]
Gearing up for Jane Street
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” - Robert Frost Jane Street is one of the most exciting players among the roster of proprietary market making firms in the entire trading ecosystem. What began in 2000 as Henry Capital, with memberships on the American Stock Exchange and Midwest Stock Exchange, today sports a broad global footprint and continues to solidify its legendary status among those that trade for their own account. As such, Jane Street is the subject of our next comprehensive case study to be published in the coming weeks. This post is an appetizer for that... Until next time...
