How does GETCO do business exactly?
I've gathered a few details.
- I've googled around for them and their speaker's descriptions speak of "razor thin" profit margins. I missed one of their presentations at my undergrad school. I'm assuming they're basically high-speed stat arb and some activity in options market making. I'm tied down in NY with a profitable derivatives group, but I am intrigued by GETCO's business model and want to work in that space eventually.
- They have an investment in BATS. BATS issued a press release not too long ago stating their transaction time dropped by 200uS. Most ECN (now Exchange?) users can't extract an edge out of 200uS if they wanted, because of the variance in message delivery times on standard routers pushing Gb/sec data across. But I have the feeling that firms like GETCO are the reason protocols like OpenBook Ultra multicast now report timestamps with microsecond precision.
- They tried recruiting one of our quants in my group. They seem to be pushing into equity options market making.
- I spoke to programmers who interviewed there. They were interviewed by, I think, a former professor who specialized in real-time systems. The lower level grunts were going so far as to optimize assembly instruction streams to minimize latency and increase throughput on the processing of FIX messages.
So my guesses:
- They're mostly a stat-arb group
- They definitely trade FX futures
- They provide liquidity more often than
they take it and rely on rebates
- They run their operations in several countries
- They are probably the primary (perhaps most significant) liquidity provider on BATS
- They're fast enough to still turn a profit on strategies like index arbitrage
Any corrections, adjustments, or speculations about this company? Someone out there has to have some intel. They have a low turn over, but I know some people have been let go or have left. There's probably some details out there.
Much thanks.
I've gathered a few details.
- I've googled around for them and their speaker's descriptions speak of "razor thin" profit margins. I missed one of their presentations at my undergrad school. I'm assuming they're basically high-speed stat arb and some activity in options market making. I'm tied down in NY with a profitable derivatives group, but I am intrigued by GETCO's business model and want to work in that space eventually.
- They have an investment in BATS. BATS issued a press release not too long ago stating their transaction time dropped by 200uS. Most ECN (now Exchange?) users can't extract an edge out of 200uS if they wanted, because of the variance in message delivery times on standard routers pushing Gb/sec data across. But I have the feeling that firms like GETCO are the reason protocols like OpenBook Ultra multicast now report timestamps with microsecond precision.
- They tried recruiting one of our quants in my group. They seem to be pushing into equity options market making.
- I spoke to programmers who interviewed there. They were interviewed by, I think, a former professor who specialized in real-time systems. The lower level grunts were going so far as to optimize assembly instruction streams to minimize latency and increase throughput on the processing of FIX messages.
So my guesses:
- They're mostly a stat-arb group
- They definitely trade FX futures
- They provide liquidity more often than
they take it and rely on rebates
- They run their operations in several countries
- They are probably the primary (perhaps most significant) liquidity provider on BATS
- They're fast enough to still turn a profit on strategies like index arbitrage
Any corrections, adjustments, or speculations about this company? Someone out there has to have some intel. They have a low turn over, but I know some people have been let go or have left. There's probably some details out there.
Much thanks.
