Evolving Our Equities Franchise
By
Jim Esposito
Share on
November 06, 2025
Dear Clients,
We’re excited to announce the launch of Citadel Securities’ High Touch Equities business – built the Citadel Securities way: through technology, partnership, and innovation. We’ve recently welcomed Elan Luger to lead this initiative and are assembling a world-class team around him. Elan and I will soon be meeting with many of you to share how we’re designing this business to deliver the execution quality, transparency, and insight you expect from Citadel Securities.
With our leading position in U.S. equities – trading nearly 25% of the daily volume – along with our operational scale and unique approach to risk management, we’re well-positioned to offer exceptional pricing and execution.
But we’re not building a business that competes solely on price – we’re building one designed to meet your evolving execution needs and help shape the markets of tomorrow.
We are also developing a suite of data and analytics tools that leverage our unique insights into global equity flows to help you make superior trading decisions.
And we’re just getting started. We’ll continue to iterate, innovate, and expand.
We’re currently beta testing our High Touch Equities platform ahead of a Q1 formal launch and welcome your feedback as we refine our offering. If you’d like to learn more, please reach out to me or Elan directly. Our goal remains the same: to understand the challenges you face and help solve them through both market expertise and better analytics. I’m confident Citadel Securities is uniquely positioned to help you navigate – and shape – the capital markets of the future.
We look forward to continuing our partnership.
Jim Esposito, President
Citadel Securities
From the Library
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New AI agent evolves algorithms for math and practical applications in computing by combining the creativity of large language models with automated evaluators
✏️ Zhejiang University, Cornell University
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✏️ Stanford GSB
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🖥️ OpenAI
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Dear Clients,
We’re excited to announce the launch of Citadel Securities’ High Touch Equities business – built the Citadel Securities way: through technology, partnership, and innovation. We’ve recently welcomed Elan Luger to lead this initiative and are assembling a world-class team around him. Elan and I will soon be meeting with many of you to share how we’re designing this business to deliver the execution quality, transparency, and insight you expect from Citadel Securities.
With our leading position in U.S. equities – trading nearly 25% of the daily volume – along with our operational scale and unique approach to risk management, we’re well-positioned to offer exceptional pricing and execution.
But we’re not building a business that competes solely on price – we’re building one designed to meet your evolving execution needs and help shape the markets of tomorrow.
We are also developing a suite of data and analytics tools that leverage our unique insights into global equity flows to help you make superior trading decisions.
And we’re just getting started. We’ll continue to iterate, innovate, and expand.
We’re currently beta testing our High Touch Equities platform ahead of a Q1 formal launch and welcome your feedback as we refine our offering. If you’d like to learn more, please reach out to me or Elan directly. Our goal remains the same: to understand the challenges you face and help solve them through both market expertise and better analytics. I’m confident Citadel Securities is uniquely positioned to help you navigate – and shape – the capital markets of the future.
We look forward to continuing our partnership.
Jim Esposito, President
Citadel Securities
From the Library
✏️Harvard University
Generative AI as Seniority-Biased Technological Change: Evidence from U.S. Résumé and Job Posting Data
🖥️ Google DeepMind
New AI agent evolves algorithms for math and practical applications in computing by combining the creativity of large language models with automated evaluators
✏️ Zhejiang University, Cornell University
Generative AI and Firm Productivity: Field Experiments in Online Retail
📑 METR
Measuring the Impact of Early-2025 AI on Experienced Open-Source Developer Productivity
✏️ Stanford GSB
The Real Cost of Benchmarking
🖥️ OpenAI
GDPVal: Evaluating AI Model Performance on Real-World Economically Valuable Tasks
✏️Cornell University, Harvard Business School, ETH Zurich
Interviews allow employers to learn about workers, but do they also enable workers to learn about firms?
📑 Bank for International Settlements
The transformation of the life insurance industry: systemic risks and policy challenges
“Andrej Karpathy, a widely admired pioneer of deep learning, provides a balanced take on AI in 2025. He celebrates the progress but points out that current coding models aren’t yet useful on novel tasks, and many problems remain unsolved.”
Vahe Musoyan
Managing Director, Quantitative Research
“Dan Wang speaks of China as an engineering state utilizing centralized control to keep building infrastructure, whilst the US has become dominated by lawyers keen to enact regulation…both good and bad. The book provides an illuminating discussion of the pros and cons of China’s approach, whilst highlighting the risks of wayward American leadership, the price of which could be losing the technological arms race. Fascinating and topical stuff!”
Nohshad Shah
Head of Fixed Income Sales, EMEA
“Bob Elliott turns a macro investor’s lens onto tech fundamentals. Noting that Meta is not seeing an acceleration in revenue that matches the scale of its capex, he presents a compelling argument that the real economy’s capacity to pay might be the limiting factor for returns on AI investments.”
Ryan Preclaw
Head of Content Data Science
“This episode of Hard Fork is a very good, practical discussion on how to think about AI in secondary and post-secondary education. Graham Burnett really nails the second half on the downfall of long-form content. The quotes from students at the end are also eye opening – it’s not all just kids wanting to cheat on their essays.”
Dane Skillrud
COO, Systematic FICC and Equities
“The Neo robot’s unveiling has created quite a stir. On the one hand, Neo represents a clear path to robots living among us as household helpers for $500/month in a year. On the other, Neo will rely on remote human operators at launch. What is autonomy? How much privacy are we willing to sacrifice for automation?”
Jeff Maurone
COO, Technology and Low Latency
“Thanks, in part, to generous support from Ken Griffin, America’s master storyteller, Ken Burns, unveils his latest six-part epic on PBS starting on November 16. The creative force behind “Baseball,” “Ernest Hemingway” and “The Civil War” turns his lens on the country’s tenuous and ultimately triumphant origin story.”
Josh King
Head of Corporate Affairs
“Andrej Karpathy, a widely admired pioneer of deep learning, provides a balanced take on AI in 2025. He celebrates the progress but points out that current coding models aren’t yet useful on novel tasks, and many problems remain unsolved.”
Vahe Musoyan
Managing Director, Quantitative Research
“Dan Wang speaks of China as an engineering state utilizing centralized control to keep building infrastructure, whilst the US has become dominated by lawyers keen to enact regulation…both good and bad. The book provides an illuminating discussion of the pros and cons of China’s approach, whilst highlighting the risks of wayward American leadership, the price of which could be losing the technological arms race. Fascinating and topical stuff!”
Nohshad Shah
Head of Fixed Income Sales, EMEA
“Bob Elliott turns a macro investor’s lens onto tech fundamentals. Noting that Meta is not seeing an acceleration in revenue that matches the scale of its capex, he presents a compelling argument that the real economy’s capacity to pay might be the limiting factor for returns on AI investments.”
Ryan Preclaw
Head of Content Data Science
“This episode of Hard Fork is a very good, practical discussion on how to think about AI in secondary and post-secondary education. Graham Burnett really nails the second half on the downfall of long-form content. The quotes from students at the end are also eye opening – it’s not all just kids wanting to cheat on their essays.”
Dane Skillrud
COO, Systematic FICC and Equities
“The Neo robot’s unveiling has created quite a stir. On the one hand, Neo represents a clear path to robots living among us as household helpers for $500/month in a year. On the other, Neo will rely on remote human operators at launch. What is autonomy? How much privacy are we willing to sacrifice for automation?”
Jeff Maurone
COO, Technology and Low Latency
“Thanks, in part, to generous support from Ken Griffin, America’s master storyteller, Ken Burns, unveils his latest six-part epic on PBS starting on November 16. The creative force behind “Baseball,” “Ernest Hemingway” and “The Civil War” turns his lens on the country’s tenuous and ultimately triumphant origin story.”
Josh King
Head of Corporate Affairs
In Case You Missed It
We’ve created a YouTube playlist in case you weren’t able to join us at our Future of Global Markets conference. Check out all the sessions here.
Chart Topping
Retail Equities – Net Notional by Week
Std Dev January-October 2025
Citadel Securities’ Retail Clients had the largest net notional buying since 2022. It was a >3 std dev buy demand, despite equity markets at all-time highs.
Source: Citadel Securities, as of October 31, 2025. Figures are for illustrative purposes only. Past performance figures do not guarantee future results.
Some Macro Thoughts…The Fed Recalibrates
Nohshad Shah, Head of Fixed Income Sales – EMEA
Fed Chair Powell struck a hawkish tone this week at the FOMC presser despite delivering an expected 25bp cut to policy rates. Specifically, he chose to highlight that a December cut was “not a foregone conclusion” and noted “strongly differing views” on the committee, suggesting both significant pushback to more rate cuts and likely further dissents to come (we had two this time – on either side of the divide). With the phrase “when you are driving in the fog, you slow down” he flagged that we might soon be coming to the end of this phase of insurance cuts.
Read Nohshad’s take here.
Global Market Intelligence | November
Scott Rubner, Head of Equity and Equity Derivative Strategy
Over the past several weeks, I’ve been on the road meeting clients across the globe. The consistent message: institutional investors remain cautious and are hesitant to add risk. However, today’s CPI print gives equities the green light in the absence of near-term economic headwinds.
As we head into November, several important flow-of-funds and technical dynamics come into play – many of which begin this week. The following highlights are drawn from my latest GMI presentation, which I’m sharing more broadly. I remain constructive on U.S. equities and expect these themes to dominate client discussions as new all-time highs are made.
Read Scott’s take here.
In Case You Missed It
We’ve created a YouTube playlist in case you weren’t able to join us at our Future of Global Markets conference. Check out all the sessions here.
Chart Topping
Retail Equities – Net Notional by Week
Std Dev January-October 2025
Citadel Securities’ Retail Clients had the largest net notional buying since 2022. It was a >3 std dev buy demand, despite equity markets at all-time highs.
Source: Citadel Securities, as of October 31, 2025. Figures are for illustrative purposes only. Past performance figures do not guarantee future results.
Some Macro Thoughts…The Fed Recalibrates
Nohshad Shah, Head of Fixed Income Sales – EMEA
Fed Chair Powell struck a hawkish tone this week at the FOMC presser despite delivering an expected 25bp cut to policy rates. Specifically, he chose to highlight that a December cut was “not a foregone conclusion” and noted “strongly differing views” on the committee, suggesting both significant pushback to more rate cuts and likely further dissents to come (we had two this time – on either side of the divide). With the phrase “when you are driving in the fog, you slow down” he flagged that we might soon be coming to the end of this phase of insurance cuts.
Read Nohshad’s take here.
Global Market Intelligence | November
Scott Rubner, Head of Equity and Equity Derivative Strategy
Over the past several weeks, I’ve been on the road meeting clients across the globe. The consistent message: institutional investors remain cautious and are hesitant to add risk. However, today’s CPI print gives equities the green light in the absence of near-term economic headwinds.
As we head into November, several important flow-of-funds and technical dynamics come into play – many of which begin this week. The following highlights are drawn from my latest GMI presentation, which I’m sharing more broadly. I remain constructive on U.S. equities and expect these themes to dominate client discussions as new all-time highs are made.
Read Scott’s take here.
1. This material is simply a compilation of otherwise publicly available data, and neither Citadel Securities Corporate Solutions nor Citadel Securities LLC has undertaken any analysis of such information beyond such compilation. This information does not constitute either “Research” or “Investment Advice”, as those terms are defined under the applicable securities laws, and should not be construed as such. Neither Citadel Securities Corporate Solutions is not an investment advisor and makes no recommendation as to the advisability of transacting in any securities or other financial products.
Legal Entities Disseminating this Material: This material is disseminated in the United Kingdom by Citadel Securities (Europe) Limited (“CDGE”) authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) (Registered company number: 05462867); in the European Union by Citadel Securities GCS (Ireland) Limited (“CSGI”) and its Paris Branch authorised and regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland (“CBI”) (Registration Number: C173437); in Hong Kong by Citadel Securities (Hong Kong) Limited (“CDHK”) licensed by the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong (“SFC”), in Japan by Citadel Securities Japan Co., Ltd (“CSJC”) registered as a Type 1 financial instruments business operator with the Japan Financial Services Agency (“JFSA”); and in the United States of America by Citadel Securities LLC (“CDRG”) registered with the Securities Exchange Commission (“SEC”), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”), and Securities Investor Protection Corporation (“SIPC”), Citadel Securities Institutional LLC (“CSIN”) registered with the SEC, FINRA, and SIPC, or Citadel Securities Swap Dealer LLC (“CSSD”) registered with the SEC, Commodities Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”), and National Futures Association (“NFA”). Unless governing law permits otherwise, you must contact a Citadel Securities entity in your home jurisdiction if you want to use our services in effecting a transaction in any financial instruments or securities, including derivatives.
FOR INSTITUTIONAL USE ONLY; FOR PROFESSIONAL CLIENTS AND ELIGIBLE COUNTERPARTIES ONLY. This material is not intended as and does not constitute investment research. Contents of this material will be strictly limited to non-specific, generic information (i.e. macro events/topics) and are not subject to the Markets in Financial Instruments directive (MiFID II) or FINRA research rules. This material does not constitute an offer, solicitation, invitation, or inducement to purchase, acquire, subscribe to, provide, or sell any financial instrument or otherwise engage in investment activity. Please see additional important disclosures, including disclosures that may be relevant to your country of residence or business at www.citadelsecurities.com/GlobalSalesTrading.
1. This material is simply a compilation of otherwise publicly available data, and neither Citadel Securities Corporate Solutions nor Citadel Securities LLC has undertaken any analysis of such information beyond such compilation. This information does not constitute either “Research” or “Investment Advice”, as those terms are defined under the applicable securities laws, and should not be construed as such. Neither Citadel Securities Corporate Solutions is not an investment advisor and makes no recommendation as to the advisability of transacting in any securities or other financial products.
Legal Entities Disseminating this Material: This material is disseminated in the United Kingdom by Citadel Securities (Europe) Limited (“CDGE”) authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) (Registered company number: 05462867); in the European Union by Citadel Securities GCS (Ireland) Limited (“CSGI”) and its Paris Branch authorised and regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland (“CBI”) (Registration Number: C173437); in Hong Kong by Citadel Securities (Hong Kong) Limited (“CDHK”) licensed by the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong (“SFC”), in Japan by Citadel Securities Japan Co., Ltd (“CSJC”) registered as a Type 1 financial instruments business operator with the Japan Financial Services Agency (“JFSA”); and in the United States of America by Citadel Securities LLC (“CDRG”) registered with the Securities Exchange Commission (“SEC”), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”), and Securities Investor Protection Corporation (“SIPC”), Citadel Securities Institutional LLC (“CSIN”) registered with the SEC, FINRA, and SIPC, or Citadel Securities Swap Dealer LLC (“CSSD”) registered with the SEC, Commodities Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”), and National Futures Association (“NFA”). Unless governing law permits otherwise, you must contact a Citadel Securities entity in your home jurisdiction if you want to use our services in effecting a transaction in any financial instruments or securities, including derivatives.
FOR INSTITUTIONAL USE ONLY; FOR PROFESSIONAL CLIENTS AND ELIGIBLE COUNTERPARTIES ONLY. This material is not intended as and does not constitute investment research. Contents of this material will be strictly limited to non-specific, generic information (i.e. macro events/topics) and are not subject to the Markets in Financial Instruments directive (MiFID II) or FINRA research rules. This material does not constitute an offer, solicitation, invitation, or inducement to purchase, acquire, subscribe to, provide, or sell any financial instrument or otherwise engage in investment activity. Please see additional important disclosures, including disclosures that may be relevant to your country of residence or business at www.citadelsecurities.com/GlobalSalesTrading.
