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Comment by radlad | Hacker News Reader

Really? Isn't FinTech getting hit harder than just about any other industry right now?

First, i dont consider Citadel, JS, etc "fintech" because they are not in the same line of work.

" Fintech, a portmanteau of "financial technology", refers to firms using new technology to compete with traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial services. "

This is NOT what people like CIT, JS, etc. do.

So maybe FinTech is being hit very hard, but from what i hear Cit, JS are doing just fine (no real layoffs).

I agree that Two Sigma, Jane Street, Renaissance, etc. are NOT Fintech. Fintech is a really large umbrella which seems to includes people like Paypal or Bloomberg and things like robotraders or companies that deal with some financial product. Hedge Funds / HFT / Algo traders can be really sophisticated with their technology, but I wouldn't call them "Fintech".

Haha yea FinTech would be a pretty derogotory term to call a HFT firm

HFT makes money off of volatility. The more the world burns the more money they make by keeping markets liquid.

That’s true, in much the sense that doctors make money off people being sick. In times of high volatility, it’s HFTs that provide liquidity and keep spreads narrower than they’d otherwise be. It is extremely illegal to purposefully make markets more volatile; good trading firms are not going to do that.

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