What's the word on Citadel now?
How should I think about an opportunity with Citadel? Are people jumping ship? They cut a lot of headcount at Aptigon recently.
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Hearing that Surveyor just cut some teams today as well.
The Aptigon reduction happened pretty publicly earlier this year, is that what you are referring to?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hedgefunds-citadel/hedge-fund-citade…
Yes. That's a huge cut isn't it?
Still the best multi-manager fund out there. They all have short leashes, but Citadel has the best risk model and access to any resource you could need. Just don't start losing money after you join and you'll be fine.
I suppose it's worth a shot to see if you make money and if you don't, you can still go somewhere else?
well-said.
There are always people being hired and fired at these shops. Depends on the team/PM. As far as I know, even Aptigon did not have an external hiring freeze as recently as a few weeks ago. Not sure if that has changed.
I’m starting to sense the multi strat model is dead.
The bad multi strat firms are losing money. The good ones are too expensive to run and running money like buffet would produce better long term returns. The good ones after how expensive they are to run are generating risks free rate plus 3-4%. In the long run just taking risks premias would be better.
Citadel can’t beat the true quant funds like 2 sigma or rentech . The true trading shops generate far more like drw or jump.
The thing is it’s a great model to attract pension fund money. Low beta which crushed owning the risks free rate.
But now the funds that make money are industry leading quants, people taking factor and idiosyncratic risks with a lot of vol, or do a buffet kind of value.
There’s a reason Goldman Sachs trades at 7-8 pe.
If you can gather assets and not blow up....that's good enough, right? I think the problem isn't platforms, it's how they do L/S equity. Tough to generate alpha flipping earnings when so many pods are trading the same names. When market unwinds, vol goes up and PMs unwind positions. Sucks - reminds me of converts.
The pods could make money with this model when fundamentals mattered more (2014 and before). I think the biggest change is ETF and quant funds becoming much more prevalent.
The old formula of front running mutual funds by getting more/better data and going long before MF pile in or shorting before MF exit is dead. The guys who follow that formula get into crowded positions and you've seen their faces get ripped off the last 2-3 yrs.
I'm not sure quants are doing that great either. For every 2 Sigma, there's an AQR who hasn't been doing so well.
I disagree with you about the platform model. There are mediocre investors that need to leave the industry, it's too big right now. But there will always be a demand for these products, and when we hit a massive downturn, they should show their real value.
They all got crushed in the crisis. Millennium down 4%. Citadel 50% though that was a different business model.
It’s a lower beta product for sure. But doesn’t crush the up moves.
Have a feeling they are contributing to a lot of the momentum in the market. Tight risks limits is a big reason why the market never sells 3% without selling 15%.
Agree on the quants. Though it does seem like trading quants are crushing it.
Even Two Sigma's performance hasn't been so strong.. Quant CTA strategies are well-populated so it's become more of an asset-gathering operation (as evidenced by the sharp increase in whitepapers/blog posts on their website).
In the case of AQR, the marketing pitch is centered around an appeal to authority (academic finance). For Two Sigma, it's the AI/ML stuff.
I think Citadel does this fairly often... It's known to be a very cut-throat shop that is willing to let you go for losing money in a very short period of time. Even in the MO world for commodities, staying for more than 2 years is not very common.
That being said, it's a machine that will pay for performance. I wouldn't view exodus as something uncommon or negative.
It's usually cheapest to lay people off right before bonus time.
i cant imagine how bitter that feels.. unless you fked up so bad you were gonna get bageled anyways, das gotta suuck
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