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Comment by caffeine | Hacker News Reader

The attitude that finance pays more is a leftover from a previous era. 10-15 years ago it was true: the profits from HFT were so also way, way bigger and split up amongst a much smaller group of firms.

Now those firms are all in a completely competitive industry squeezing each other for basis points.

Meanwhile the definition of a FAANG is that it has an effective monopoly, and these companies are taking in way more money than the HFT industry. (Netflix is losing its monopoly but we can’t really drop N from the acronym without a replacement..)

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> but we can’t really drop N from the acronym without a replacement

Huh, yeah. That would be quite a GAAF. Gotta come up with something before Netflix is forced out of the FAANG club.

I’ve seen MAAM being used.

When FB took it's huge hit I saw people using MANGA. But again if we drop the N...not great.

FAGMAN is still my favorite.

Typical edge lord naming from r/wallstreet bets, thats where this originated from wasn't it?

Same as FAANG to FAAG, shocking but a touch funny.

MANAMA is fine, you just get MAAMA in case of Netflix sinking.

GAMMA works if you add back Microsoft, who are doing better lately.

Tbf, most of us don't really prefer to be called as HFT's but as Market Makers. Different name, but we still use the same ultra low latency techniques to get the job done.

“The job” being trading securities at high frequencies?

I worked in option AMM when the term HFT started getting thrown around in some articles, and was discussed as this uber secret hush hush thing, and I was interested. I was then astonished when I kept reading and found out that it was what I had been doing- it was just another name for market making really...

Yep. At the end it is market making, in markets where speed is of the essence to be competitive. Funny thing is, now firms in the industry want to be termed as Market Makers rather than HFT since the media has turned HFT into a very negative term.

Back when Flash Boys came out, we all started calling each other Flash Boys. There was then a serious proposal to rename one of the strategies (the hedger, for added irony) Grandma Annihilator 3000.

When the KCG thing came out, one of the new grads was renamed “Power Peg” for a few weeks.

I miss the 2010s. It was a lot more fun when people leaned into stuff instead of being scared all the time.

Hahaha, that is pretty cool. I don't think we'd do something like that, especially the "Power Peg" one, at my firm. Although, it'd be fun.

> I miss the 2010s

Ah, so true. I was in college and grad school during that period, would have been more fun to work in the industry back then.

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