Optiver Amsterdam

Trading

Our Trading department consists of Screen Trading and Wholesale Trading. Our Screen traders provide the best prices to counterparties and our Wholesale traders manage our external Trading relations.

Screen trading
Financial markets are characterized by numerous participants with different views at different moments over time. When participants have a desire to trade, our market making activities make sure there is always an opportunity to do so. We buy when others want to sell and we sell when others want to buy. As such our trading activities add substantial liquidity to the markets on which we are present.

Over the last 25 years Optiver has gained a superior understanding of what it takes to be a good trader. We believe trading is a decision making process where success is the result of thorough preparation. Our preparation methods vary. They include leaning on pricing models and understanding the limitations of those models, and extend into cross instrument understanding and beyond. It all allows us to take and profitably manage risks as a market maker.

Whether it’s trading or doing business in general, decision making can be considered along two lines. On one, there is the time taken for a decision. While a other companies will eventually spend days, weeks or months making a decision on their next line of products, we will only spend seconds or when prepared, a fraction of a second, making our decisions. The second line is the type of answer we reach. While some problems like 2+2 only have one answer, in trading, decision making moments stream out into a web of dynamic and interrelated answers. As a market maker we have to be able to quickly solve a web of possible solutions and stay on top of the chain.

Not very long ago almost all trading took place on the trading floor of large exchanges. Traders in colourful jackets were shouting their orders and giving hand signals to confirm their transactions. Nowadays their role is taken over by traders who sit behind several large trading screens and use sophisticated software to make their trading decision. That’s why we call them screen traders.

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