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birb_cromble  3d ago (text post)   506 thread views

Weekly Finance Thread - 2027-07-04

A weekly thread to discuss financial matters - from personal all the way up to global.

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Most Jane Street traders aren’t cheating or doing anything interesting. They’re exploiting tiny quirks in foreign derivatives markets or the repo market / basis trade or creating ever more complex ways to eke out margin when ETFs rebalance all with huge leverage so that 1bp becomes a moderately large figure.

There are definitely still hedge fund types who engage in the traditional shadier kind of business, but they’re not quants, they’re big global/regional macro or sector/theme funds run by guys in their sixties whose claim to fame was correctly calling one big crash in the last 35 years.

Yeah most macro guys have one or two big bets that work out and otherwise get their asses beat over time. Market making is just a gigantic ticket clipping operation which is why it's relatively sustainable and scales well

It’s a ticket clipping operation but in certain cases with insane leverage which in a real crisis where crazy things happen for short periods in the repo market (like they did in 2008) could blow up in an interesting way.

True. It's not completely free money but it's less reliant on directional moves provided they aren't big outliers.

RIP Benn Eifert 🙏

Most Jane Street traders aren’t cheating or doing anything interesting. They’re exploiting tiny quirks in foreign derivatives markets or the repo market / basis trade or creating ever more complex ways to eke out margin when ETFs rebalance all with huge leverage so that 1bp becomes a moderately large figure.

That's cheating if a 140 IQ person can't do it from home. The world exists for smart individuals, not grinding ekers.

I mean 140 IQ guys are setting the parameters then it's a combination of top tier bots, accumulated subject matter expertise and negotiating super low fees in exchange for super high turnover.

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