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Jane Street Capital
Proprietary trading firm From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Jane Street Capital is an American proprietary trading firm headquartered in New York City.[4] It employs more than 2,600[5] people in six offices in New York City, London, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Chicago, and Singapore, and trades a broad range of asset classes on more than 200 venues in 45 countries.[6]
It is among the principal market-makers – in 2020 it traded more than $17 trillion worth of securities. It was considered to have helped keep bond exchange-traded funds (ETFs) liquid during the market turmoil in 2020.[7]
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History
Jane Street was co-founded by Tim Reynolds, Rob Granieri, Marc Gerstein, and Michael Jenkins.[7][8] Reynolds, Granieri, and Jenkins were formerly traders at Susquehanna International Group.[9] It was started in 1999.[1][8][10][11]
In 2012, Tim Reynolds stepped down from his position running the firm.[9]
Activities
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The firm ended 2020 having traded $4 trillion in global equities, $1.4 trillion in bonds, and $3.9 trillion in ETFs.[7] During the COVID-19 pandemic, the firm saw its revenue jump 54% to a record of $10.6 billion during the year ended in March 2021.[12]
As of 2021, its trading capital was about $15bn. As well as high-frequency trading, it in some cases maintained positions for hours, even days or sometimes weeks, which is essential for ETFs that track less-traded markets. On any given day, it was holding about $50bn of securities. It is an authorised participant[13] in 2,600 ETFs and lead market-maker on 506 ETFs, and plays an important role in maintaining ETF liquidity.[14]
In 2023, the company generated $10.6bn in net trading revenue with adjusted earnings of $7.4bn. It released these numbers as part of a debt deal which aimed to expand the amount of cash on Jane Street's balance sheet from $4.3bn to $5.6bn.[3]
In June 2025, Jane Street co-founder Robert Granieri funded an alleged coup d'état plot to topple the government of South Sudan. Granieri claimed he was duped into funding the alleged coup plot, helping Peter Biar Ajak purchase Stinger missiles, AK-47s, and grenades.[15]
In July 2025, Indian stock market regulator SEBI accused Jane Street Capital of a "sinister scheme", seized over 550M in "illegal gains" and has issued a freeze on the firm's activities in India, a country where the firm had recorded 2B in profits over approximately the last two years, as a deeper probe is conducted. Jane Street Capital has asserted its innocence in the face of the allegations. [16] [17] SEBI alleges that Jane Street Capital was engaged in market manipulation in the form of an "intra-day index manipulation strategy", in which Jane Street took long positions in BANKNIFTY index and its constituent stocks through cash and futures, in the first half of the trading sessions on option expiry days, while simultaneously taking much larger short positions through options. After dumping the long position in the index and constituent stocks in the second half of the session and taking a loss on those trades, it profited many times more on the options trade.[18] SEBI also claimed that Jane Street created circular trades between itself and its India-registered entities, as part of the strategy.[19]
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Technology
Almost all of its software is written in the OCaml programming language.[20][14][21][22][23] Their repository is around 70 million lines long.[24]
Leadership and culture
Jane Street has no CEO. According to loan documents viewed by the Financial Times, the company calls itself "a functionally-organised structure consisting of various management and risk committees". Jane Street employees are paid based on the firm's collective profits, not personal trading gains. The company is informally led by a group of 30 or 40 senior executives.[7][25]
The firm's culture includes a focus on the risks of improbable but catastrophic crashes. In addition to hedging at trading desk level, Jane Street at company level spends $50m-$75m a year on put options.[14]
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Lawsuits
In April 2024, the firm brought a lawsuit against Millennium Management alleging that Millennium stole its trading strategy through engaging two of its former traders, Douglas Schadewald and Daniel Spottiswood.[26] The firm claimed the strategy, which traded options in NSE/BSE India, earned about $1 billion in 2023.[27]
Scandals
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India derivatives market scam (2025)[28][29]
In July 2025, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) issued an interim ban barring Jane Street and its affiliated entities from trading in Indian securities markets, citing alleged expiry‑day manipulation of the Bank Nifty index using coordinated cash, futures, and options trades.[30] SEBI froze approximately ₹4,843 crore (US $567 million) in purported trading profits, described as "unlawful gains". Jane Street complied with the order by depositing the amount into escrow but has formally contested SEBI’s characterization, asserting its actions represented legitimate index arbitrage.[31][32]
After the escrow deposit, SEBI lifted the trading restrictions. Jane Street, however, did not resume trading, citing prior commitments not to trade in options—a key part of its strategy. SEBI's investigation expanded to examine six of its affiliated entities and trading records spanning from January 2023 to May 2025.[33]
India’s Income Tax Department also initiated document reviews of Jane Street’s local operations and its partner firm, Nuvama Wealth, to investigate possible violations of tax treaty provisions and anti‑avoidance rules. Reports indicate that Jane Street maintains critical accounting infrastructure offshore, with minimal local staffing in India.[34][35]
The incident significantly affected the Indian derivatives market, resulting in a marked decline in Bank Nifty options turnover. SEBI chair Tuhin Kanta Pandey has since called for structural reforms to enhance market fairness and protect retail investor interests.[36] Jane Street continues to deny any wrongdoing and plans to respond formally to SEBI’s allegations within regulatory timelines.[37]
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Notable past employees
- Sam Bankman-Fried[38] and Caroline Ellison,[39] recipients of misappropriated FTX customer funds, were once employed by the company.[40]
- Brett Harrison, current CEO of trading technology firm Architect Financial Technologies
- Zvi Mowshowitz, writer who covers topics in artificial intelligence
- Ophelia Bauckholt, deceased quantitative trader associated with the Zizian rationalists, interned at Jane Street as an undergrad.[41]
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References
External links
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