Do arbitrage opportunities exist for retail investors?

No. Arbitrage means riskless profit. It doesn't mean buying and selling the same thing. If you could buy a call option for zero, that would be considered arbitrage because you cannot lose money.

Correct. I could buy Dec & June 6 month calendars and sell 12 month Dec. I could buy ice brent sell cme brent. I could go on.
 
Just as a note of clarfication for noobs--- statistical arb = pair trading

No you are wrong. Newwurldm is correct. Pair trading is a subset of stat arb not equal. For example you may have a start arb trade in a nat gas double fly and its clearly not a pair trade.
 
See the title: is that type of trading reserved for the people with the fastest computers and most resources.

I would say true arbs are not available to retail however stat arb strats are. Retail has higher round trip costs and higher latency so you would need to focus on longer time periods. You would analyse multileg spreads with cointegration studies and go from there. Another hurdle is margining with retail brokers. Say you have a multileg spread a, b, c, d. The retail broker will try and margin you margin a + margin b etc. A prop firm or portfolio margined account will cut your margins right down.

So the answer is yes but with limitations.
 
Give me an example of an arb that's risk free and I'll tell you how it's not..... This strict definition is not useful... It's more aligned with the ideology that you can't make money as a retailer arbing liquity differentials or anything else... Trading dispersion or any pair trading... What do you think the market makers are doing really... Taking risk!!!!

Here is one. I am on the bid and offer wti on ice 3 tick spread eg. 45.31x 45.34, someone lifts my offer and I hit the 45.32 x 45.33 nymex offer. Its risk free if I am goldman sachs?
 
No you are wrong. Newwurldm is correct. Pair trading is a subset of stat arb not equal. For example you may have a start arb trade in a nat gas double fly and its clearly not a pair trade.

OMG! Like Debit so eloquently stated, you can't fix stupid comments.
 
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Here is one. I am on the bid and offer wti on ice 3 tick spread eg. 45.31x 45.34, someone lifts my offer and I hit the 45.32 x 45.33 nymex offer. Its risk free if I am goldman sachs?
I don't think there is anything risk free ..... There is always a risk.... That might be very low for GS in this case but there are risks like your fixed overhead costs might exceed the amount of times you are able to execute this so call risk free trade... Secondly you could have another desk take huge losses offsetting your gains... The exchange your suppose to leg into might go down temporaryly... All very possible
 
i traded an arb op when i traded for LAC out of St. Thomas-- finding mispricing among the different option exchanges and sometimes the ask was less than the bid which meant free money--- there were also locked markets etc--- it was great when it lasted.
 
i traded an arb op when i traded for LAC out of St. Thomas-- finding mispricing among the different option exchanges and sometimes the ask was less than the bid which meant free money--- there were also locked markets etc--- it was great when it lasted.

I traded one for a while too. It still exists (to my knowledge) but is impossible for a retail investor and most institutions as well. It was jurisdiction arbitrage and it required lots of lawyers. It involved trading spreads so it must have been a form of stat arb.
 
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