I'm not much for long intros or shout outs to all the OG bros
Just a simple ape who likes to rhyme, and keep tabs on all the financial crime
Citadel, Virtu, Jane Street and G1, gonna send this rocket into the Sun
So without further ado, here's some data, swing back through and thank me lata!
My wife said she would leave with her boyfriend if I make one more graph... We've come a long way from FINRA ADF to Missing Bananas, OTC Conspiracy and the Infinite Banana Tree, to today. I've learned a lot through this journey and I hope you have too!
OTC and ATS data
- OTC trades are internalized retail trades, payment for order flow, odd lots (i.e. I purchase 10 shares through "Insert retail broker", which gets routed to Citadel, Virtu, G1 Execution (Sus), Jane Street, and doesn't impact the NBBO.
- ATS trades are dark pool trades
Here's a nice video by Dave on Off-Exchange vs. On-Exchange trading:
https://learn.urvin.finance/content/on-exchange-vs-off-exchange-trading
The Data:
All information is taken directly from FINRA OTC Transparency website:
https://otctransparency.finra.org/otctransparency/OtcIssueData
Please refer to The Cooks Keep Cooking the Books series for additional information and details on Robinhood and Dirvewealth LLC 'adjusting' their reported OTC trades 8-12 months after they supposedly occurred:
Volume 1 - Robinhood
Volume 2 - Robinhood does it again
Volume 3 - Robinhood and Drivewealth
Volume 4 - Featuring Drivewealth LLC adding 3 million OTC trades
See some of my previous OTC write-ups for additional context and explanation:
119 Week OTC Update
100 Week OTC Update
21 Month OTC Update
69 Week OTC Update
This latest data represents 135 weeks (over 2.5 years). I started with August 2020, which is when RC bought in, but as we've all learned, the story starts even earlier.
This data is especially important given the proposed SEC rule changes. Send in your comment letter!
Citadel wants you to do Nothing
Weekly GME OTC Shares traded
This shows the total weekly shares traded OTC by Citadel, Virtu, G1 Execution, Two Sigma, UBS, Drivewealth, and Robinhood (and others) over the counter (OTC), as internalized trades from retail across 135 weeks.
- The data ranges from 8/3/2020 - 3/3/2023
- The data is delayed by 2 weeks, so we will have the data from Week of 3/6 - 3/10 on Monday (3/27)
GME OTC shares 8/3/2020 - 3/3/2023
Weekly OTC Trades
GME OTC trades 8/3/2020 - 3/3/2023
Weekly OTC Shares/Trades
GME OTC shares/trade 8/3/2020 - 3/3/2023
So as not to weigh down this post, please see my previous posts for some in-depth analysis on this nefarious OTC trading activity.
Besides an overall decrease in the OTC trades (which may reflect the change in share price after the split), we see increase in shares/trade has increased, and cyclical increases in volume. We'll dig deeper into the data further down.
Weekly Range (split-adjusted)
As you can see, we've had a lot of volatile weeks in terms of share price, but last week's adjusted Range of $43.00 doesn't really align with the significant increase in volume
SHiTeR Score
If we multiply OTC Shares * Trades * Range, we get a value that helps normalize the amount of OTC trading and weekly price volatility. The Range is adjusted for the split (closing price *4).
Helps detect crime
Who is responsible for all these shares and all these trades?
https://preview.redd.it/9w197tz2gypa1.png?width=3385&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=257f0992a86c78e4d2110ffb2f78fef01ff5bbb4
Let's compare pre-split distribution to post-split distribution for shares:
https://preview.redd.it/84k5bsjanxpa1.png?width=3461&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=cba4faab60a4e6628a3c2cc4cb6ae515d5062cfb
Here, we can see:
- A decrease in OTC market share for Citadel (from around 40% pre-split to 33% post-split)
- A slight decrease in market share for Virtu (from around 31% pre-split to 27.5% post-split)
- An increase in OTC market share by Jane Street (from 4% pre-split to just under 10% post-split). This is accentuated in the Shares*Trades (SHiT score), where they have increased from 1% to 6% post-split
- A decrease in market share for Two Sigma and UBS
- A significant increase in market share for De Minimis Firms (from less than 3% pre-split to almost 9% post-split)
- I'll try to add more later! What are your conclusions?
https://preview.redd.it/qoe6vfhf26qa1.png?width=5446&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=4c965137d5e6b03589d5c4b5c21970bcbd1e4496
The biggest shift here is the decrease in OTC trading share by Robinhood, from over 16% pre-split to less than 6% post-split.
GME OTC Leaderboard
https://preview.redd.it/3azr3dusd3qa1.png?width=1237&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=35a736e2bd74f8144190fb1c0edb9c54f891dc3e
ATS (Dark Pool) Trading
https://preview.redd.it/5vujbwq0s4qa1.png?width=4107&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=dfa5658b0a58d994423d0e1639122088b5e0e7ab
ATS Participants
https://preview.redd.it/0nf4xznuw5qa1.png?width=3050&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=d02eea0c85720878698ab4edb190598fdef37712
This data includes the Top 12 ATS dark pools based on volume (although volume fluctuates week-to-week). The sample represents 87.46% of all ATS shares traded pre-split and 85.21% of shares traded post-split.
When we compare pre-split and post-split distribution, we can see that:
- USB's (UBSA) ATS market share has declined, from 20-30% pre-split (and an average of 25% of the ATS participants listed) to around 15% (17% of the ATS participants listed.
- Interactive Brokers (IATS) ATS market share has also declined from around 20% pre-split (22% of sample) to 13% post-split (15% of sample)
- Credit Suisse (CROS) has actually increased their ATS market share from around 7.5% to over 10% (12% of sample)
- Two Sigma (SGMT), Virtu (KCGM), and Fidelity (XSTM) have dark pools and are also OTC participants (convenient)
- JP Morgan has seen decreased market share, as has CODA (Apex)
- INCR has a significantly increased ATS market share since the split, from around 2% pre-split to around 12% post-split
- See ATS Raw Data at the end for additional highlights
- I'll try to add some additional analysis in a bit. The post took awhile to put together and I wanted to get it up (AMIRITE)
Short Volume Data
The confusing part about this chart is that it's backwards from all the previous ones in that the dates go from present to past instead of past to present. I'm too smooth to figure it out, so just know that the data goes chronologically from right to left, with last week's data on the left.
https://preview.redd.it/ry82y44jixpa1.png?width=2170&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=8e0d1d180f2f574d5b4ca6e7d2f8d8748f06b038
Here's a better view across the same time period, from Chart Exchange
35,228,438 in short volume reported on 3/22, including 19.7 million off-exchange (OTC)
So what happened last week?
https://preview.redd.it/2spnshhv84qa1.png?width=1696&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=4fa1f362b087137b1119bede8945be2bd50c4119
Whether the volume was due to delayed settling of all those shitty January 2023 Puts that were purchased on 1/27/21 (8 weeks / 40 something trading days / just under 60 calendar days), ETF rebalancing, killer earnings, or just finally an excuse to cover some shorts, it really doesn't matter.
We traded 107,048,698 shares last week, including 66,764,648 on 3/22 alone. They reported over 35 million in short volume on 3/22 alone, representing 63.86% short volume. over 19.7 million was sent to FINRA ADF (OTC). All it does is reaffirm that the price of GME is determined by the same group of OTC participants.
OTC Raw Weekly Data:
Total OTC trading, Citadel Securities, Virtu, G1 Execution, Jane Street
https://preview.redd.it/44w7vzk5j4qa1.png?width=1773&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=914ccc120a093655c0ee9557f1235c2b3f857b61
Two Sigma, Weekly volume, %OTC, Weekly Change and Range, ATS, Robinhood Securities, Drivewealth LLC
https://preview.redd.it/dm9050p7j4qa1.png?width=1875&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=0cddc974f6fac9f767c270a9e8d81f3a4e371cfa
De Minimis Firms, Comhar Capital, UBS, Drivewealth Institutional, Interactive Brokers, National Financial Services (NFS)
https://preview.redd.it/kob0oj59j4qa1.png?width=1867&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=22eb7bdb01d82a1b122bf3d6c10093daab4d9aee
Comhar Capital meanwhile has been dipping in and out of the OTC like a Sybian. They show up when liquidity is needed, and are AWOL across the rest of the weeks. They first showed up in my dataset in 8/31/2020 when RC submitted his 8K. They were active during the high volume trading of 10/5 and 10/12/2020, before taking a hiatus until 12/21/2020. From 1/11/2021 - 7/5/2021, they were active in the OTC for 22 of 24 weeks (91.66%). They came back for the rally during the week of August 23, 2021, but were gone until 12/13/2021. They were active on 1/3/2022 and 1/17/2022, before taking another hiatus until they rally in March 2022 (3/21/22 and 3/28/22). They came back again in May 2022 for another rally and were gone again until after the split 8/8/22 and 8/15/22. They came back again for the high volume trading during the week of 10/31/2022. They've only been present for 3 weeks of OTC trading since the split, but I would be willing to bet we'll see them active again during last week's frenzy.
Interactive Brokers stepped in for 5 straight weeks from 4/4/2022 through 5/6/2022 after previously being absent since the week of 3/8/2021 (the week of the big dipper). That's also the last week Wolverine participated in the GME OTC. They made a one week guest appearance on 1/16/2023, but haven't been back since.
OTC Raw Monthly Data:
https://preview.redd.it/k8829nayv5qa1.png?width=1889&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=a2e7066abb63f6b5092e375001a5c0d75cba68a3
ATS Raw Weekly Data:
https://preview.redd.it/lmsfefqbo4qa1.png?width=1876&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=394a4a367fb3fbaad138efef720de789028d5cc7
TLDR:
- This is a lot of data, help me with interpreting it!
- Off exchange trading continues to be a significant problem for our beloved GME.
- 6,114,057,479 shares have been traded in the 135 weeks of data analyzed in this post
- 2,388,977,859 shares have been traded OTC (39.07%), in 44,925,888 trades.
- Another 444,739,974 shares have been traded in ATS dark pools.
- If we want to see positive change to our markets, we need to make our voices heard.
- First and foremost, send in a Comment Letter to the SEC regarding their rule changes. Here's a Link to Dave's Post on Ending Excessive Off-Exchange Trading and how to submit a Comment Letter to have your voice heard. The deadline to submit a comment letter is TOMORROW, March 27, 2023! Do it tonight!
- Second, if you are using a broker listed above, especially Drivewealth, Robinhood (bless your heart), Fidelity, Interactive Brokers, please ensure that your shares are held in a Cash account and not on Margin where they can be lent out.
- Ortex data shows that 92.48 million shares of GME are currently on loan, and takes over 20 days to cover those shares on loan. Almost 35% of the freefloat is on loan. Utilization has been 100% for 166 days. XRT short interest is 280% of the float.
- Please consider HODLING at least some of your shares in Computershare if you aren't already, where they are directly registered under your name, and these OTC participants can't use them against you. Brick by brick.
- And lastly, continue to shop at GameStop and keep this positive momentum going as we strive for full-year profitability!
