It’s just political. Who is allowed to manipulate and who pays their dues to be able to.
It’s just political. Who is allowed to manipulate and who pays their dues to be able to.
In this case it was Millenium ratting out on Jane Street (edit - other way around), but now the entire HFT (Edit: hedge funds. Thanks for the callout avvt4avaw) industry is under extreme scrutiny by SEBI as a result [0]
[0] - https://www.sebi.gov.in/enforcement/orders/jul-2025/interim-...
Jane Street's kvetching about Millenium showed the spotlight and now everyone will be getting the hammer ("iss hamam mein sabh nange hain"). Jane Street was also dumb enough to do this during the General Election, so now Indian regulators have to do something. This plus the Adani prosecution is a quick win to restore confidence in SEBI.
And on top of that - don't make such squabbles public during a GENERAL ELECTION, thus forcing politicans to cleanup shop.
Same thing happened to Adani Group, as their scandal hit during the run up of the 2024 GE.
Now both Adani Group and the HFT industry are under severe scrutiny due to the upcoming Bihar Elections, which is used a sandbox to test messaging by the opposition and incumbents in preparation of the next General Election and other state elections.
Millennium and Citadel are both hedge funds, who do not engage in market making at all. They are most similar to other multi-strategy hedge funds like Balyasny or Point72.
You may be thinking of Citadel Securities, who are a market making firm and do engage in high frequency trading. Other large and well known HFT firms include Hudson River Trading, Tower Research, Jump Trading, Virtu, IMC and Optiver.
You weren't wrong. All market making is now electronic and all electronic market making is done at a speed only available to HFT firms, so the previous comment reply to yours saying that Jane Street is a market maker but not HFT, is more than a little silly. The Citadel being referred to here in this reporting is also the market making (hence HFT) one, so their attempted correction on that made little sense either.
Jokes aside, I appreciate callouts and/or corrections!
All I know is a set of firms like Millenium, Citadel, Jane Street, etc ki gaand phatne wale hain. You don't pull these kinds of shenanigans during or in the run-up to General Elections, Bihar Assembly Elections, or UP Assembly Elections. People have been screwed over for less.
Everything revolves around elections in India. It is a highly political environment and elections are a big business (just getting a party ticket nomination to campaign for an MLA seat itself costs around $10-20 million).
And the public sentiment against big business in India has gotten much stronger lately due to the past several years of inflation. Jibes against Adani and the stock market crash in 2024 after the General Election solidified that view.
> If not Bihar, then West Bengal
West Bengal state elections don't matter - it's not a swing state, and the local TMC has removed any breathing room for other parties like the BJP, INC, or CPIM in the WB political arena.
Bihar on the other hand is a swing state which is up for grabs this year due to the succession crisis within the ruling JD(U), and it's election is always used as a petri dish for messaging and campaigning across Hindi-speaking North India.
The Bihar and UP state elections always set the tone for the General Election. The others are important, but nowhere near as important.