Optiver profits steady

0 comments / June 28, 2013

Declining volumes and market volatility – Optiver wasn’t hurt in 2012. The profits of the firm remained stable with 141,6 million, which is only slightly less than 2011 (159,9 million).

CEO Jelle Elzinga stated the decreased volumes in the equity have been partly offset by new trading operations in the bond market. On the other hand, the firm achieved a remarkable lower cost of operations, from 227.4m to €189.6m while the headcount even went up from 588 to 647.

Their annual report is not yet available, we’ll have to wait for that. Elzinga himself will step down January 1st after a career of twenty years with Optiver. With 42 years he’s ready to retire and spend his days on the golf course. He’ll keep his shares.

Best place to work

Most of the profits are from outside Europe, the company opened an office in Shanghai this year. According to Jelle Elzinga the Chinese market will be too important to trade from their office in Sydney.

While they won’t be trading the Chinese markets, there’s also some good news from down under. With a staff of 203 employees Optiver Australia won the BRW Best place to work in 2013. Worth watching the interview with Optiver Australia CEO Paul Hilgers. Marketing lingo of course, but the company is competing for scarce talent and this is excellent public relations.

Meanwhile, IMC still wants to know who said this.

IMC and their lawyers

13 comments / June 25, 2013

Last year’s profits at IMC Financial Markets have been 78 million, roughly half of the results over 2011 (162 million). Trading revenue was down to 342 million from 470. Nevertheless Rob Defares was happy with the results. According to him the markets are getting more professional with less margins, but with new technological investments their market share increased. And IMC started trading in Brazil and India – from Chicago and Sydney offices.

Lawyers

The declining profits at IMC didn’t come as a surprise, the bonus leak at IMC Chicago showed substantial lower bonuses for the happy few. Speaking of which – ever since the bonus leak the lawyers for IMC have been bugging me with demands, threats and deadlines. The piece about the bonus leak has temporarily been deleted, the free commenting blocked and dozens of comments erased.

More lawyers

Turned out this was only the beginning for IMC. They demanded this old post about the culture in IMC Chicago from 2011 to be deleted, too. Because well uh, it’s not recent and it hurts the reputation of the firm IMC. They even explained me how people could still find it using Google.

But it got even worse. A request from expensive Park Avenue lawyers to supply the IP addresses of anonymous comments below the bonus leak post and from the 2011 IMC Chicago post (like the IP of this comment, and this one). In addition, they found a certain very suspicious IP address they wished to check. “Please provide a list of all comments from this IP“. I kid you not. Two weeks ago these demands were repeated by a Dutch lawyer.

Answer is “no”

And no, I won’t be handing out any ip addresses to IMC or any of their lawyers. Checking IP’s against comments on this site? Dude, seriously. Privacy is king, as is freedom of press. That’s the short answer. For long answers I’ve got my own lawyers.

See, IMC seems to believe all internal problems within the firm can be solved by a firing spree of subversive traders and developers. They’re hunting for the own employees. Looks like there is something really wrong within IMC. Glad I don’t work there.

Update

Free comments are open again.

Mail for Richard den Drijver

0 comments / June 16, 2013

In a local newspaper in The Netherlands, next to advertisements of sex phone numbers and criminals on the run : there’s mail for Richard Edward Den Drijver. Insurance company ASR used to have nearly 6% stake in Van der Moolen before the firm went bankrupt.

The Enterprise Chamber judged Richard den Drijver has ruined the firm, and ASR is probably filing claims against him. Den Drijver’s whereabouts is still unknown, so perhaps I can help by giving the newspaper announcement some more attention it deserves.

Let’s assume Hans Kroon has already been traced, somewhere in Monaco.

To be continued.

Schwalbe by HFT rules victim CIT

0 comments / June 9, 2013

A few years ago, after Van der Moolen filed for bankruptcy, seven new firms were created by former VDM traders. Two of them folded in recent years (Alphabay in ’10, Aespen in ’11) and this week another one threw in the towel.

CIT, or Cologne Independent Traders, was a company build on the remains of Van der Moolen’s German and Swiss remains. It has been day trading in stocks and ETF’s from their offices in Cologne and Pfäffiko, Switzerland. Firm counted 25 employees.

In the press they are branded as the first victim of the tougher German High-Frequency Trading (HFT) rules. The “significant” burden of the European regulations is too much for the firm. While the Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) is destructive for the economy and the HFT regulations by the Germans are silly, I believe this is a schwalbe by CIT. I don’t buy the HFT regulations excuse. Firm wasn’t tackled by new regulations.

While 2011 earned a profit of 3,4 million, the year 2012 has probably shown a loss because of the declining volumes and margins in the market. With general market conditions getting more challenging every year, every company needs a sharp edge to survive. Rumor has it CIT doesn’t qualify as a top of the line HFT trading shop, instead it has got nothing to do with high frequency trading at all. They lack the technology – according to sources.

It’s fine to blame it on the rain, but really – it’s okay to collapse on ordinary trading losses. There’s no referee handing out free kicks in this game.

Millionaire traders under 40

1 comment / June 2, 2013

There’s a new interesting rich list in our favorite magazine Quote. Even better than the usual Quote 500 list – with most “traders” being investors at the right time and place. Early founders in Optiver and IMC.

The new list was published in the ~~May~~ June edition, and is a ranking of self made millionaires under 40. Most successful former open outcry traders are way too old to be included in list – so finally we have some view on traders who made their money in the screen trading era.

Nr 40 Bram Bastiaansen (31jr) 10mio Amsterdam Capital Trading
Nr 41 Jaap Janssen (32) 10mio Amsterdam Capital Trading
Never heard of this firm ACT, checked their website in eight languages and they must be doing something with trading in CO2 on behalf of clients. Founders sold their company to to Antea Participations for a tidy sum.

Nr 42 Pim Bertens (37jr) 10mio Binck
Started as market maker in the open outcry era for AOT, after a period with IMG founded Binck with three others. Sold Binck to AOT. The other founders did probably even better, but Hanneke Nieuwenhuis, Thierry Schaap and Kalo Begijn are over 40.

Nr 45 Ivo Geijsen (32jr) 9mio IMC
Only one IMC trader in the list. Company is earning a lot in Chicago. The manager received almost 18 million US dollar bonus in two years. Seems there’s a pyramid style pay at IMC, but the Quote researchers have missed Robin van Boxsel : same level as Ivo.

Nr 53 Alco Pieren (33jr) 8mio Optiver/Tibra
Nr 60 Johan Hoekstra (39jr) 7mio Optiver
Nr 77 Maarten van Amstel (34jr) 4mio Optiver
Nr 86 Simon Soet (33jr) 4mio Optiver
Nr 93 Stefan Kip (33jr) 3mio Optiver
Nr 95 Bas Koeling (34) 3mio Optiver
That’s an impressive list of Optiver traders who earned a small fortune.

However, there is a small catch. Only bonuses paid to to holding companies (Ltds, BV’s) are visible to the researchers from Quote. When your bonus is paid out directly into your bank account, it will remain invisible for the researchers. Except of course when bonus lists are aren’t kept confidential (IMC Chicago).

There are a quite a few traders which Quote must have missed, apart from Robin van Boxsel. Who should make it to the list, more IMC traders? The Kokomo brothers? Flow Traders anyone? Any lucky survivor from All Options? Scrocca? On the other hand, 3 million euro net worth is a lot – tax is definitely eating a big share.

Amsterdamtrader