Fact: several major banks are major market makers in ES and ES options. Value of your commentary: negative.
They made markets to facilitate economies of scope. They would have done it at a loss. It was such a small part of their revenue it probably amounted to a rounding error. Citadel did more MM business then all the investment banks combined.
ET traders not affected by low vola,low vol and still raking it in? This is Elite Trader after all. Best of the Best.
Well ET seems to have more scam vendors and their shills than traders, so it stands to reason they're not affected. That said a decrease in order flow is a smaller problem for small traders than it is for big traders for obvious reasons.
This is a good thing. Banks, which collectively enjoy a taxpayer-funded backstop, should not dominate trading. Moreover, as a side effect, the playing field is becoming more level.
how much of the trading was the banks trading with themselves vs. organic demand? Hard to believe that trading has declined this much on its own. Ultimately the reason to build these huge and marginally profitable trading operations is to boost revenues and then boost CEO pay, which is more tied to revenues and absolute level of profits than to profitability. Grow earnings year after year is the goal, that's what increases pay of a CEO. That's why at the end Jimmy Cayne was running Bear Stearns and not Ace Greenberg. If you look at the new Wall St. banks, like Evercore or Greenhill or Blackstone, they have no trading operations because trading never makes money, at least over an entire cycle.