Susquehanna International Group, LLP (SIG) is a privately held trading and technology firm. SIG comprises a number of affiliated

entities An entity is something that exists as itself, as a subject or as an object, actually or potentially, concretely or abstractly, physically or not. It need not be of material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually re ...

specializing in trading and proprietary investments in

equities In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...

fixed income Fixed income refers to any type of investment under which the borrower or issuer is obliged to make payments of a fixed amount on a fixed schedule. For example, the borrower may have to pay interest at a fixed rate once a year and repay the prin ...

, energy, commodity, index and

derivative products In finance, a derivative is a contract that ''derives'' its value from the performance of an underlying entity. This underlying entity can be an asset, index, or interest rate, and is often simply called the "underlying". Derivatives can be u ...

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a t ...

and

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which h ...

, research, customer trading and institutional sales. SIG is a specialist or DPM (designated primary

market maker A market maker or liquidity provider is a company or an individual that quotes both a buy and a sell price in a tradable asset held in inventory, hoping to make a profit on the '' bid–ask spread'', or ''turn.'' The benefit to the firm is that ...

) in approximately 600 equity options and 45 index options. SIG's headquarters office is in Bala Cynwyd, a western suburb of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

, Pennsylvania, US, and its European headquarters are in the IFSC,

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

, Ireland. The firm employs more than 1,900 people in offices across North America (

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

Boca Raton Boca Raton ( ; es, Boca Ratón, link=no, ) is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. It was first incorporated on August 2, 1924, as "Bocaratone," and then incorporated as "Boca Raton" in 1925. The population was 97,422 in the ...

, Stamford), Australia (

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

), Europe (

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

) and Asia (

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

). SIG is one of the largest employers in

Lower Merion Lower Merion Township is a Township (Pennsylvania), township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It is part of the Philadelphia Main Line. The township's name originates with the county of Merionethshire, Merionet ...

Township.

History and trading

SIG was founded in 1987 by

Jeff Yass Jeffrey S. Yass (born 1956) is an American options trader and billionaire. He is the co-founder and managing director of the Philadelphia-based Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and an early investor in TikTok. In 2001, he joined the exec ...

, Gerald Yass, Arthur Dantchik, Steve Bloom, Eric Brooks, Andrew Frost and Joel Greenberg. SIG's operations extend across North America, Europe, and Asia, trading essentially all listed financial products and asset classes.

Quantitative Trader program

The Quantitative Trader (QT) program (formerly the Assistant Trader program) develops traders for positions in the market making and trading businesses. A QT will be introduced to the financial markets through a combination of practical training on a trading desk that is supported with ongoing theoretical classroom instruction. The QT will be assigned to a trading desk to support the daily activities for ongoing trading. They will work directly with a trader who is available to answer questions and provide feedback. Two senior traders teach the theoretical classroom education, which is the core of the program. Simulated trading sessions and classes that highlight the key elements of trading make up the program’s curriculum. Class topics include option theory, decision science,

corporate finance Corporate finance is the area of finance that deals with the sources of funding, the capital structure of corporations, the actions that managers take to increase the value of the firm to the shareholders, and the tools and analysis used to all ...

game theory Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents. Myerson, Roger B. (1991). ''Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict,'' Harvard University Press, p.&nbs1 Chapter-preview links, ppvii–xi It has appli ...

, and market structure. Upon completion of the QT program (which typically lasts anywhere from 9 to 18 months), all QTs will attend the formal ten-week SIG Market Maker Class, which is the final step before becoming a trader at SIG.

Bitcoin trading desk

Since 2016, the company has built a

Bitcoin Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...

trading desk that is now being expanded to include 500 of its clients, according to the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. Susquehanna will be trading futures that are tied to Bitcoin prices, and enable customers to purchase and sell Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as

Ethereum Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether (Abbreviation: ETH; sign: Ξ) is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capita ...

and

Bitcoin Cash Bitcoin Cash is a cryptocurrency that is a fork of Bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash is a spin-off or altcoin that was created in 2017. In November 2018, Bitcoin Cash split further into two cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV. History Since i ...

. The move follows the company's assumption that Bitcoin will predominantly be used to challenge

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

as a rare

commodity In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. The price of a co ...

for the near future, but will eventually transform financial services and "exist forever."

Trivia

Poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game wa ...

and other games are an important part of the SIG company culture. The founders and senior traders believe that poker teaches lessons on decision making under conditions of uncertainty. SIG hosts an internal poker tournament annually and has even used poker as a recruiting tool. The company employs Bill Chen, a

World Series of Poker The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker pl ...

star, in its quantitative trading group.Chen, Bill (May 28, 2021)
The Intersection Of Poker And Chess.
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References

External links

*{{Official website, https://sig.com/ Companies based in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania American companies established in 1987 Financial services companies of the United States 1987 establishments in Pennsylvania Privately held companies based in Pennsylvania Companies based in Philadelphia