Rupak Ghose is formerly a financials research analyst at Credit Suisse and head of corporate strategy at ICAP/NEX. The latest spate of financial results illustrate a widening gap in the world of electronic market-making. Two firms that were once direct peers — Jane Street and Flow Traders — are now as far apart as Amazon and Poundland.
Both were founded roughly two decades ago — Jane Street in New York around 1999 and Flow Traders in Amsterdam in 2004 — and for a while they were seen as each others main competitors in the burgeoning ETF industry, where they are both prominent market-makers. But slowly the gap got bigger and bigger . . . and bigger. Last week Flow Traders reported that net trading revenue declined 35 per cent year-on-year to €300mn in 2023, while loan docs obtained by Bloomberg indicate that Jane Street churned out another $10bn-plus of net trading revenues last year. That naturally caused a lot of shock, some disbelief and plenty of seething env