Optiver tops the Dutch ranking again
Optiver’s chief Jelle Elzinga made a phonecall to the journalists from Financieele Dagblad. Even before releasing the official figures on the firm’s results on 2010 – he was happy to share the information with them. That’s new. Trading firms dialing the journalist phone number, instead of other way around. Jelle was in my voicemail too, but he forgot to call Quote.
The good news is Optiver is doing fine again after a troubled 2009 with basically zero profit. Didn’t come as a surprise though. Company earned 75 million, 69 million more than 2009. That’s a tenfold improvement, but still incomparable with earlier years (228m in ’08, 179m in ’07 and 96 m in ’06). The headcount was down 10% to 580 and the rest of the interview is marketing. Unknown which activity in which market has been most profitable. The CFTC will be cheerful Optiver will be more than able to pay the fine.
For a better picture , here’s a 3 year overview of results compared with IMC. It’s clear 2009 was an anomaly with IMC beating Optiver. Everything is back to normal again.
When it comes to the number of traders and other employees, IMC is still the winning firm:
Of course, the most interesting thing for the company is the contribution to the net profit per employee. The average contribution per employee to the net income would also be worth mentioning – but let’s save it for a rainy day.
Looks like you did a graph of average profit per employee rather than average profit per trader.
yeah definitely. theyd shut the place down if they were only bringing in 130k per trader. you probably need something like a minimum of 500k per trader just to break even
look at the chart carefully. this is net profit already, meaning it is AFTER all the expenses and your salaries.
meaningless drivel,
chart is trader earnings after costs, retained by the firm.
that is, earnings NOT paid to the trader.
where would you rather work?
@ 1:19 pm
if your trying to say imc pays its traders better, you are a moron. imc’s 2008 earnings were pitiful compared to optiver and so was the bonus pool yet the companies are of comparable size. all other things being equal, you would have wanted to be at optiver rather than imc, with the exception of 2009.
let me put it in another way, all option’s 2009 retained earning per trader were negative. that’s a lot of money NOT kept by the company. great place to work?
seriously are we comparing optiver vs IMC ??!
@ 2:38 pm
which would you rather in the GOOD years?
owners keep all the money you made?
seriously… think about the upside, or lack of it.
The discussion here’s great at proving that you don’t have to have business sense to trade.
First of all, this is no basis for a comparison.
The right way to compare IMC and Optiver would be to strip the numbers down so that you can compare traders on even metrics. Whether that’s your gross revenue, net revenue or whatever.
Two things to consider. IMC consolidates all its group’s operations so that you have a load of non-trading stuff in there as well. Looking at Optiver’s numbers, it looks like they have some fluff in their reservations.
Ideally, you’d want to strip the numbers to some metric for purely trading activities and the compare those on a per trader and per employee, keeping in mind to compare Optiver with IMC trading employees.
Does anyone have the Optiver annual report in PDF?
yeah, it must be available by now
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFN1E76C25B20110713?sp=true
JACK WHY DID YOU DELETE MY POST? ANYWAYS, WHERE ARE ALL THE OPTIVER HATES AT NOW? WE BACK ON TOP!
@ 12.37, 1:39
Reading can be hard:
“Even before releasing the official figures on the firm’s results on 2010 – he was happy to share the information with them.”
Translation: the annual report has not been filed with the chamber of commerce (yet). So unless Elzinga sends over a copy to Jack, both of you will have to wait with the rest of us.
optiver rules europe like everyone else wishes they could.
its quite painful to see all this censorship by Jack, big brother govt, wtf,
Settlement talks with CFTC set for Aug. 5, interesting,
‘optiver rules europe like everyone else wishes they could.’
how much is their market share in delta one derivatives, listed or OTC ?
Sssshhhh, don’t mention delta-one
why ?
Optiver makes money by buying the delta 1 puts. They see black swans coming while other fools sell them for peanuts.
Dan had je beter puts kunnen kopen met een lagere delta
delta one puts, nice oxymoron : )
i think he meant small puts with a delta of 1% ?
glad to see optiver back on top. love to see all the haters quite now
This website always refers to market makers in options at Euronext, but I wonder who are the liquidity providers for ordinary stocks at Euronext? I can imagine that autonomous supply and demand may work well to provide a liquid market for AEX listed stocks, but I wonder whether it works for stocks in the AMX and such. What happens if a stock is traded too often to be auctioned, but not enough to be traded continuously without a market maker?
of course, in theory small cap stocks are compensated for lower liquidity with a higher expected return; but that’s not a reason for Euronext not to try right?
(though it’s true Euronext doesn’t really worry about investors’ wishes, they’re monopolists after all.)
“Fee Pitched for Fast Firms”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704681904576311092027991616.html
So .. the regulator is making rules off flawed logic again .. a process that has never stopped them from fucking innovation in the past…
Oh well .. back to trading off spreadsheets boys.
Hope you all remember how to press shift-F9.
Oh, and to the army of tech-dorks we employ .. your services are no longer required.
Hey, anyone know how to write macros?
“glad to see optiver back on top. love to see all the haters quite now”
Quit?
Quiet?
English motherf-, do you speak it?
‘i think he meant small puts with a delta of 1% ?’
you can just sit short with all these market panics around .. long delta one put,
‘who are the liquidity providers for ordinary stocks at Euronext? ‘
i would suppose, high freq, stat arb participants, to the extent it pays for the trouble of providing liquidity,
‘Euronext doesn’t really worry about investors’ wishes, they’re monopolists after all’
Euronext doesnt have ibank style bonuses, so its hard for them to get the organization moving to generate style ibank style .. remember its not the euronext as a company, but the dep heads, desk heads who are doing these day to day decisions, they probably got 10 different things worrying rather than how to have capital markets functioning better ..
‘So .. the regulator is making rules off flawed logic again .. a process that has never stopped them from fucking innovation in the past…’
stop complainting and get real .. The TARP was govt sponsored 700bn fund .. they dont want to go back to that place again .. so they are using their bird brain to come up with whatever they can .. banks are all over lobbying against dodd-frank .. so should high freq people against some stupid regulation .. getco/optiver et al are already doing that in europe ..
‘English motherf-, do you speak it?’
not perfectly ?
rumor of a certain bank to buy out a certain HF shop
names?
‘rumor of a certain bank to buy out a certain HF shop’
isn’t it the reason why Optiver is willing to share their good results with the reporters. Why would they suddendly do it?
i am not being critical of Optiver but i would be amazed if an IB wanted to add almost 600 employees to the payroll. If they do buy it get ready for a lot of redundancies.
GS wanted Hull, but that was a very long time ago
‘not perfectly ?’
Might wanna brush up on your movie classics
@ 2:23 am has a bank EVER taken over without a shitload of redundancies?
brush up those CVs fellas.
they are buying Sun Trading
hey optiver geniuses, love those new black curtains.
very batman ^o^
“tighten that spread boy wonder”…
“holy stolen code batman!”…
tuesday banter in the hunter street bat cave.
whats wrong with redundancies, its not communism, if you can’t finda second job, you are not fit enough for current job .. also the acquiring bank couldnt be an american bank, they are all divesting prop desks as HFs ..
where would an axed MM employee go?
desks are not expanding.
Nowhere. No one in finance outside of your own cottage industry would employ you.
You only have one skill, to scalp the market, no versatility
Reckon you all have about 2 years before the machines take over and the vast majority of you will all be out of a job
But if you have already made it, the next two years are extra revenue and then you retire before you are forty.
Or if you have not made it, you can become a professional poker player.
‘where would an axed MM employee go?’
other MM, startup MM, startup trading firm, prop trading, research, education, professor, fin training firm, sabbatical, banks, BO, MO, other fin companies, stock exchange, clearing, consulting, risk, compliance, data firm, bbg, reuter, fin software company, markit, calypso, another geography, and obv whole another profession ..
‘Reckon you all have about 2 years before the machines take over and the vast majority of you will all be out of a job’
this has been said addendum for last 20 years .. ofcourse there will be reduced headcount, but not everything is as simple as that can be programmed on machines,
but by then all the algos will have taken over poker. Guess you have to algo all the algos
Getting married to Bhandari´s then divorced wife who will take half of what is his sounds like a good alternative.
HAHA silly MMers, my brother makes more money from poker in a month than the avg MM annual sal. (admittedly he bust at the main event WSoP).
hence why I told him not to bother joining a MM.
and yes I agree @4.30am I was once told by a MM trader “if we loose our jobs there is very little open to us”
and there will be a time when your job will become obsolete.
we’ll take our chances … dipshit
‘where would an axed MM employee go?’
in the past, they’d end up at Curvalue
or in risk-management-lameness at a bank.
@ 12:26 pm bad trade net net
Who cares about a guy with a thickly striped dark blue suit, flood-water pants, and light brown shoes walking around Zuid like he’s on Broad St? You donkeys all work in Amsterdam. If you can see a windmill from your office you are still in the farm leagues. Show some solidarity or something because this is pathetic. A dutch investment banker vs a dutch market maker? Bitch please.
man i am on broad street, i be happy to be back on oud-zuid,
‘HAHA silly MMers, my brother makes more money from poker in a month than the avg MM annual sal. (admittedly he bust at the main event WSoP).
hence why I told him not to bother joining a MM.’
nice, there are lots of people who make more money than MM, doesnt mean i can be one of them or i wanna be one of them .. most MM look fwd to what they do and money is not the fore front of everything that people do ..
silly investment bankers … my cousin makes more money selling cocaine and gets his chicks for free. i told him not to bother joining an investment bank
Can someone post the Optiver annual report? It is available on KVK but don’t have an account.
“Who cares about a guy with a thickly striped dark blue suit, flood-water pants, and light brown shoes walking around Zuid like he’s on Broad St? You donkeys all work in Amsterdam. If you can see a windmill from your office you are still in the farm leagues. Show some solidarity or something because this is pathetic. A dutch investment banker vs a dutch market maker? Bitch please.”
What if this guy is an ambulance chasing academic with a pedo smile that wears a sweater vest drinking diet red bulls all day?
Word is that nomura is looking at buying Optiver and their first move will be to install Danny Bhandari as the new global head. look for the butcher to use his knife to slash at least 150 staff in his first few months. the coast is clear for Bhandari to return as the haters that removed him from Optiver Aust all those years ago have long since left Optiver.
i actually heard that Bhandari was producing bollywood films?
I am selling my Optiver shares right now. Any buyers?
ill swap you my tibra shares for your optiver shares. ill also trade you the optiver cftc fine versus the optiver damages won against tibra spread.
No thanks.
I can offer you some VDM shares for it.
I am very interested in the shares. Please email me at steven.schwab@tibra.com with the details. Thx
Japenese had enough fun buying Lehman, optiver acquisition not going to happen, also why would Johann and & Co sell out to an investment bank ..
http://www.amsterdamtrader.com/2010/09/optivers-cfo-to-quit.html
Thumb up and Thumb down .. yah we are in the world of democracy and conformism .. take a majority vote and do what the crowd does .. both so important when it comes to trading and taking market risk ..
Optiver vs Tibra trial has been set down for 4th June 2012, estimated 8 weeks.
in one year’s time ?!
Yes. In one year’s time.
https://www.comcourts.gov.au/file/Federal/P/NSD681/2009/actions
doing a a documentary on the culture, attitudes and motivations on all you guys in the HFT industry, both programmers and traders alike. Its a look at your work and personal lives. I aim to break down the jargon, explain what it is you do and stylise in the same vein as the crop of reality tv shows of cooking and renovation to make it truly accessible to the everyday person. It will show how you view the world.
daar zit toch niemand op te wachten, including us
everyday person could never really understand of what goes on watching a 2 hour documentary .. if it was that simple, it wouldnt have been so profitable !
oh come on, don’t pretend what you’re doing is rocket science
Can I get a 2-way on some liquid shares? My paper is a seller.
…Just been joined on the offer. I wonder if these two guys are related?
i dont understand .. what is this paper you are talking about ?
‘oh come on, don’t pretend what you’re doing is rocket science’
It’s not, but everyday person can’t understand it through 2 hour documentary, also the principle of punting/risk taking are usually counter-intuitive to what we learn growing up, eg working hard aka trading all day wouldn’t generate more P&L than guy who puts on one trade a week .. being good in trading has lot to do with experience, 2 hour documentary couldn’t give the right perspective of what it takes and means.. in fact it’ll be harmful since moronic everyday person would think he has ‘figured’ it out and start behaving like a stud, where as he still is a everyday moron .. thank god for those actually ..
perhaps thats what the doco should cover – your attitude to the “everday moron” what makes you so superior; is that how you measure yourself? you trade therefore everyone else is a moron. if you truly believe you are that smart do something useful like cure cancer. im sure the everyday person would be interested in what your view of them is and your “valuable” contribution! Narrowing spreads!!!!………..all you HFT guys just symphon money out of the market that could otherwise be used in innovation and investment. your attitude says alot about you……have a look in the mirror.
‘what makes you so superior’
I myself loose money, so I am not superior either, but most importantly, I realise that I am sucker too, and so I am extra careful,
‘if you truly believe you are that smart do something useful like cure cancer’
I am not smart enough, unfortunately
‘im sure the everyday person would be interested in what your view of them is’
Yah I am always stressing that I loose money and so will they, so they have to be careful with all this markets investing and trading .. most of us are suckers in this giant casino ..
‘your attitude says alot about you’
My one paragraph told you so much about me as a person .. boy you are so smart, when are you coming out with cure for cancer ?
I figure the average pay does not reflect the skew in the distibution, the top dogs taking way more than most others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPruKs1uld4