Good-bye MANA Partners

MANA Partners, a much-hyped trading firm founded by Manoj Narang (ex-Tradeworx) is in a total tailspin after launching trading in January 2017.

According to a confidential source, the firm had as much as 400M AUM, however its trading record was anything but dismal, losing money almost every month since inception. Most investors withdrew money immediately after 1-year lockup period, and now the firm has less than tenth of AUM they started with. The staff count has been decimated as well.

In addition I was told that the firm has spent prodigally on top quality feeds, colo, hardware, and other infrastructure, but that IP belongs not to the hedge fund, but rather to the technology affiliate MANA Tech llc.

As recently as April, Institutional Investor profiled Mr Narang in most glowing terms, ranking him #1 in their Trading Technology 40 list.

What's The Opposite Of "To The Moon" ?

As BTCUSD rate is falling ( down to the Earth? ) prudent traders know that there are many ways to play the market. Of course people who were short futures, or long puts are able to realize gains, but I would like to suggest other ways to play the market as well.

1 - There is a limited downside to the market, and steep call skew. If you think that market will recover, you can purchase at calls, financing them with 2 otm calls. For example, end of August 6500 / 7500 spread, for a small debit.

2 - If you think the market is going lower, consider buying near put, financed by otm call. 5000 / 8000 end of August spread looks reasonable, and at this futures level quite closer to the down strike.

My preferred way to spread the market is by not by vertical spreads, but rather with calendar and diagonal spreads. I will be discussing these strategies in the future, but in the meantime wanted to share some news: it seems like after recent Bitmex outage, Deribit has been gaining new futures traders. While I typically don't write about this - besides options, Deribit is a solid and stable futures platform.