简街的秘密十亿美元交易如何瓦解

在最新一期的《消息来源与方法》节目中，我们回顾了伊朗战争这一周的剧烈波动。

On the latest episode of sources and methods, a week of whiplash in the Iran war.

美国先是护航船只通过霍尔木兹海峡，紧接着又突然停止了这一行动。

The US escorting ships through the Strait Of Hormuz then just as quickly not.

这让我想起电影《大白鲨》。

Reminds me of the movie Jaws.

还记得那个市长说，喂。

Remember the mayor said, hey.

一切都很顺利。

Everything's great.

赶紧回水里去吧。

Go back in the water.

这些事对整体战局和油价意味着什么。

What it all means for the wider war and for gas prices.

本周《消息来源与方法》，来自NPR的国家安全播客。

This week on sources and methods, the national security podcast from NPR.

这是NPR的《星球金钱》。

This is planet money from NPR.

在华尔街，财富往往取决于微乎其微的优势。

On Wall Street, fortunes are often won and lost with the tiniest advantages.

比如，你的公司能不能在某个全球市场的角落里，找到一套超厉害的交易策略？

Like, can your firm find some brilliant trading strategy in some corner of the global market?

或者，你能不能把这招藏好，不让竞争对手发现，免得他们抢走你的利润？

Or can you keep it a secret from your competitors so they don't start cannibalizing your profits?

过去几年里，有一家交易公司因为巨额利润和近乎完全的保密性脱颖而出，它叫Jane Street。

And for the past few years, one trading firm has stood out from the rest for both huge profits and almost complete secrecy, a firm called Jane Street.

Jane Street如今以每年惊人的盈利闻名于世。

Jane Street has become famous for making these incredibly high annual profits.

去年，他们的净交易收入达到了205亿美元，几乎是前一年的两倍。

Last year, they posted $20,500,000,000 in net trading revenue, basically doubling from the year before.

短短二十多年，他们就从一家默默无闻的初创公司，成长为能和高盛比肩的交易巨头。

And in just a couple of decades, they've gone from being a little known startup to trading on the level of Goldman Sachs.

但Jane Street是一家私营公司。

But Jane Street is a private company.

他们很少接受采访，也没有什么知名的高管。

They don't give a lot of interviews or have any high profile executives.

他们故意保持神秘，不对外公开。

They are intentionally a black box.

所以当彭博社的法律记者克里斯·多尔梅茨第一次听说Jane Street要起诉它的主要竞争对手时，他就意识到这非同寻常。

So when Chris Dolmetsch, a legal reporter for Bloomberg News, first heard that Jane Street was bringing a lawsuit against one of its main competitors, he knew it was a big deal.

任何关于Jane Street的报道都会立刻引发巨大关注。

Anything you write about Jane Street gets immediate huge attention.

没人知道这家公司到底是做什么的，具体怎么运作。

Nobody knew what this place was and and what they did, really.

他们只是赚了大钱，所有人都想知道他们是怎么做到的。

They just made a lot of money, and everybody wanted to know how.

而且要

And to

克里斯，这场诉讼看起来像是难得一见的机会，能让我们一窥Jane Street这个黑箱内部到底怎么回事。

Chris, this court case seemed like it might offer this incredibly rare window inside the black box of Jane Street.

因为现在这家公司指控两名前交易员窃取了他们最赚钱的交易策略，并带到直接竞争对手那里。

Because now the company was accusing two of its former traders of stealing one of their most lucrative trading strategies and taking it to a direct competitor.

Jane Street声称，这家竞争对手——Millennium Management——现在正使用同样的策略，蚕食他们的利润。

Jane Street alleged this competitor, Millennium Management, was now using that same strategy and eating into their profits.

所以Jane Street要求法院禁止Millennium继续这么做，赔偿他们的损失，同时为了防止别人窥探他们的交易机密，还请求法官禁止公众和像克里斯这样的记者进入法庭。

So Jane Street was asking the court to stop Millennium, to award Jane Street damages, And in order to prevent anyone else from figuring out their trade secrets about, you know, trading, they asked the judge to bar the public and reporters like Chris from the courtroom.

但法官拒绝了这个请求。

The judge declined that last request.

于是2024年4月19日早上，克里斯整理好衬衫，前往曼哈顿下城的一座法院。

And so on the morning of 04/19/2024, Chris buttoned up his shirt and went down to a courthouse in Lower Manhattan.

他走进法庭，坐在那些年薪百万的顶级律师旁边，准备听一场漫长而枯燥的法律陈述。

He shuffled into the courtroom next to some of the most expensive lawyers money can rent, and he settled in for a marathon of dense legalese.

这类听证会通常都特别无聊。

These things are very dull, generally dull kind of hearings.

一堆律师在那儿各抒己见，讲的都是法律上的事。

Lots of lawyers talking, making very distinct points about the law.

你得特别专心听，但其实也就在那儿等着，盼着能听到点有意思的东西。

So you really have to pay attention, but you also are just kind of listening for anything that sounds, you know, interesting.

就像听着电梯里的背景音乐，等着中间突然冒出一首重金属。

It's like listening to elevator music and and waiting for heavy metal to come in the middle of it.

对你来说，重金属就是赚大钱的时刻。

Heavy metal is the payday for you.

那种重金属突然炸出来的瞬间，吉他一响，你立马就来了精神。

Heavy metal moments where all of a sudden the guitar start playing, and you're like, okay.

那可是大事。

That's a big deal.

克里斯说，庭审一开始完全是电梯音乐的节奏。

Chris says the trial began with a solid dose of elevator music.

真正第一丝重金属的苗头，出现在法官试图搞清楚这个秘密交易策略对简街业务有多重要时。

The first tiny hint of heavy metal came when the judge tried to find out how financially important this secret trading strategy was to Jane Street's business.

在问这个问题的过程中，法官透露了一个关键细节：2023年，Jane Street通过这个交易策略赚了大约十亿美元。

In the course of asking that question, the judge revealed what seemed to be an important detail, that Jane Street had made about a billion dollars from this trading strategy in 2023.

Jane Street的律师没有对这个数字直接回应，但她后来提到，这个策略最近是他们投资组合中收益最高的交易，这些话听在Chris耳里，简直像刺耳的噪音。

Jane Street's lawyer did not comment on that number specifically, though she did say later that this strategy had recently been the most lucrative trade in their portfolio, all of which was like loud distorted music to Chris's ears.

当法官说这是个十亿美元的交易策略时，大家的耳朵一下子就竖起来了。

When the judge says this is a billion dollar trading strategy, your ears perk up.

另一段高潮出现在讨论Jane Street如何希望尽可能扩大策略的范围，甚至具体到这笔交易在全球哪个地区进行时。

Another hit of heavy metal came in an exchange about Jane Street's desire to keep the contours of their strategy as big as possible, even down to where in the world this trade was happening.

法官对此表示了一些怀疑。

The judge expressed some skepticism.

法官说，交易策略的具体细节，比如别人可能用来复制的部分，是一回事。

The judge said details of his trading strategy that might allow somebody to replicate it are one thing.

而涉及交易的证券所属的大洲，完全是另一回事。

The continent whose securities are an issue is quite another.

大洲？

Continent?

你是说，地理上的大洲？

As in, like, geographical continent?

就是地理大洲。

Geographical continent.

有意思。

Interesting.

他们保密到这种地步啊。

Like, that's the level of secrecy that they want here.

你懂的。

You know?

连这交易到底在地球上哪个地方都不愿说。

They don't even wanna tell you this is on planet Earth.

只要是能让人摸清他们操作路径的线索，他们一丁点都不想透露。

Anything, like, that would give anybody kind of a road map to find out what's going on, they don't want.

不管他是不是有意的，法官这话其实已经向克里斯这样的人透露了：现在玩的是个地域游戏。

Whether he meant to or not, the judge had sort of tipped people like Chris off that they were now playing a geographic game.

Jane Street 这笔钱，到底是在哪个地方赚的？

Like, where in the literal world is Jane Street raking in all this money?

没过多久，千禧年的律师随口提了一句，说这笔交易发生在全球最大的期权市场之一。

Not too long after that, one of the lawyers for Millennium appears to offhandedly mention the kind of market that this trade was happening in, saying it was one of the largest options markets in the world.

就在吉他声突然尖锐响起的那一刻，这位律师做了一件完全出人意料的事。

And in a final burst of screechy guitar, that same lawyer does something totally unexpected.

他似乎无意中泄露了这笔交易的确切地点。

He appears to maybe accidentally give up the exact location of the trade.

他说，印度某个国家有个内置的交易系统，说完立刻道歉了。

That's when he says, there's a built in system to trade in India, in some country, and then he apologizes.

他一道歉，我就知道，他刚刚说出了一个重大线索。

And I knew the second he apologized that he had just revealed something that was going to be a big deal.

这可不只是背景里那点微弱的吉他声。

That's more than a little bit of faint guitar music in the background.

这分明是一段重磅独奏，我一听就知道——有料了。

That's that's a big solo that I know is, oh, this is news.

这绝对是新闻。

This is definitely news.

我们掌握了一个十亿美元的策略。

We have a billion dollar strategy.

我们知道这是他们最赚钱的业务，现在还知道了地点在哪。

We know it's their most lucrative, and now we know where it is.

不管具体是什么，都涉及印度的期权交易。

Whatever it is, it involves options trading in India.

克里斯写下了这个故事，像往常一样发表了，但法庭上透露的信息很快传遍了全球。

Chris writes up his story, publishes it like he would any other story, but the information revealed in that courtroom would soon ricochet around the world.

它引起了竞争对手和监管机构的关注，引爆了数十亿美元的交易，并动摇了全球金融中一些最核心的策略。

It would draw the attention of competitors and regulatory agencies, blow up billions of dollars worth of trades, and call into question some of the most fundamental strategies in global finance.

你好，欢迎收听《金钱星球》。

Hello, and welcome to Planet Money.

我是亚历克西·霍罗维茨-加齐。

I'm Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi.

我是玛丽·柴尔斯。

And I'm Mary Childs.

几年前，简街发现了一个金矿——全球最大经济体之一的金融漏洞，这让他们成了华尔街的羡慕对象。

A few years ago, Jane Street discovered a sort of gold mine, a financial glitch in one of the biggest economies in the world that helped them become the envy of Wall Street.

但当他们试图保守这个金矿的秘密时，事情却彻底失控了。

But when they tried to keep that gold mine a secret, things spiraled out of their control.

今天节目中，我们将探讨简街在印度期权交易中的行为，揭示了华尔街巨头与普通交易者之间的权力差距，也展现了利用机会与市场操纵之间那条微妙的界限，以及拼命保密交易策略所带来的意外后果。

Today on the show, what Jane Street's Indian options trade reveals about the power imbalance between Wall Street juggernauts and everyday traders, the surprisingly fine line between taking advantage of an opportunity and market manipulation, and the unintended consequences of trying to aggressively keep a trade secret.

简街拼命想保密的交易策略，核心似乎就围绕着三个关键词：印度期权市场。

So a big part of the trading strategy that Jane Street was so desperate to keep secret seemed to center on three magic words, Indian options market.

在任何市场的任何一笔交易中，都有两方参与。

And in any market on any given trade, there are two sides to the story.

一方是买家，另一方是卖家。

There is the buyer, and there is the seller.

为了理解简街所参与的这个市场，我们想听听交易另一方的声音。

In order to understand this market where Jane Street has been playing, we wanted to hear from someone on the other side of the trade.

所以我们联系了一位整天都在做日内交易的人。

So we called up someone who spends a lot of his waking life day trading.

他叫文卡特什·乌帕达亚，朋友们都叫他文基。

A guy named Venkatesh Upadaya or Venky as his friends call him.

你有什么爱好吗？

Do you have any hobbies?

平时喜欢做点什么消遣？

What do you do for fun?

消遣？我以前常看YouTube视频，别的就没啥了。

Fun, I used to watch YouTube videos, but no other hobbies.

我大部分时间都待在家里。

Like, I spend majority of my time in my home itself.

这交易啊，简直像坐牢。

So this trading is like a jail.

文基五十岁出头。

Venky is in his early fifties.

他说自己是大学毕业之后才接触到交易的。

He says he first found out about trading after college.

当时他正在上一门课，想将来能做企业税务和合规方面的工作。

He was taking a course to be able to work in tax and legal compliance for corporations.

但是

But

我试了一年，但没坚持下来，因为成绩一般。

I, tried for one year, but I couldn't complete because I was an average student.

所以我想，还是放弃吧。

So, I thought, I would give I will give it up.

就在那段时间，Venky发现了后来让他感觉像坐牢的爱好。

It was around that time that Venky discovered the hobby that would eventually come to feel like jail.

空闲的时候，他常去旧书店逛。

In his free time, he would frequent old book shops.

有一天，我偶然看到一本叫《商业周刊》的书。

And, one day, I came across, a book named, Business Today.

那本书里提到了五千亿、六千亿、一万亿这样的数字。

And in that, there were figures like 5,000 crores, 6,000, 10,000 crores.

一亿等于一千万。

Crore means 10,000,000.

所以文基读到的都是上百亿卢比的规模。

So Venky's reading about like a 100,000,000,000 rupees.

好几百亿美元啊。

Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.

我当时就想，天啊，世界上居然真有这么大的数字。

I thought, my god, in the world, such figures are there.

我这才明白，原来人们是通过公司赚钱的。

And, I came to know that through companies, people are making money.

文基开始更深入地了解股市。

Benke started learning more about the stock market.

他开始自己动手做交易。

He started making trades of his own.

大约十年后，到了2008年，他已经全职做交易了。

And a decade or so later, by 2008, he was trading full time.

后来，本克从股票市场转向了期权市场。

And eventually, Benke graduated from the stock market to the options market.

期权是一种投资者对股票走势下注的方式。

An option is a way for investors to bet on a stock.

它是一种合约，让你有权在未来的某个特定日期之前，以约定的价格买入或卖出某只股票。

It's a contract guaranteeing you the option to buy or sell a particular stock at an agreed upon price on or before a specific expiration date in the future.

如果你觉得可口可乐的股价会上涨，就可以买一份期权。

So if you think Coke stock is gonna rise, you can buy an option.

如果股价真的涨了，你就能以低价买入股票，赚取差价。

And if it does rise, you can buy that stock at a discount and pocket the difference.

如果股价没涨，你就让期权到期，损失也就是当初买它花的钱。

If it doesn't, you can just let your option expire and eat the cost, whatever you spent to buy it.

本克说，对于他这样的日内交易者来说，期权更有吸引力，原因有几个。

Benke says for a day trader like him, options were more appealing for a couple reasons.

首先，买期权通常比买股票便宜得多。

First, buying an option is generally much cheaper than buying the stock.

而且跟美国不一样，印度股市的买卖双方少得多，股票很难交易。

And unlike in The US, the Indian stock market has way fewer buyers and sellers, So stocks are just harder to trade.

期权的吸引力在于，我们用很少的钱就能操作。

The attraction of options is that we can do with very little amount of money.

期权吸引人的第二个原因是，它能带来高回报，而且不需要太多资金。

The second reason options were appealing is because they offer the prospect of high returns without needing a lot of money.

如果押错了，你确实会亏掉投入的钱，但损失是有限的。

If you happen to place a bad bet, you do stand to lose whatever you paid, but your losses are kind of limited.

如果押对了，你的收益可能是本金的几倍甚至更多。

And if your bet pays off, you can potentially make many multiples of your investment.

有些期权交易，收益能达到五倍、十倍，甚至五十倍。

In some options, can make 5x, 10x, even 50x we can make in some trades.

大概十年左右，文基一直属于一个相对小众的群体。

For a decade or so, Venky was in a relatively rarified group.

但后来发生了几件事，让印度的期权市场突然爆发了。

But then a couple of things happened that caused the Indian options market to explode.

2019年，印度国家证券交易所——许多交易都在这里进行——开始推出更多种类的期权产品。

In 2019, the National Stock Exchange of India, where a lot of this trading was happening, began offering more kinds of options for sale.

最终，印度的日交易者每周每天都能够交易期权，甚至还能买卖当天到期的期权。

Eventually, that meant Indian day traders could place bets on options every single day of the week and even on options that expired the same day they bought them.

第二个原因是疫情。

And second was the pandemic.

你还记得疫情期间，美国一大批散户投资者联手推高了像GameStop和AMC这样的迷因股吗？

Remember how during the pandemic, an enormous horde of retail investors in The US started banding together to pump up the value of meme stocks like GameStop and AMC?

股价直冲云霄。

To the moon.

印度的期权市场也出现了类似的情况。

Well, the same thing kinda happened in India for options.

对。

Yeah.

印度成千上万的中低收入人群被困在家里的时候，纷纷拿起手机和电脑，涌入这个快速扩张的期权市场。

While millions of lower and middle income people in India were stuck at home, they started taking to their cell phones and computers to get in on the rapidly expanding options market.

突然之间，YouTube 和 TikTok 上冒出了大量包装精美的金融博主和期权导师，吹嘘他们所谓的稳赢交易策略。

All of a sudden, there was this whole ecosystem of slick financial influencers and options gurus touting their unbeatable investment strategies on YouTube and TikTok.

大家好，交易员们。

Hello, traders.

今天我们要聊一个非常棒又简单的交易策略。

Today, we'll be discussing about an excellent and simple trading strategy.

你的风险很低，但利润却可能是无限的。

Your risk is very less, but your profit is unlimited.

为了实现财务自由，很多人选择做期权交易。

In order to achieve financial freedom, many people are choosing for option trading.

跟我一起学习工具，培养正确的思维，自信应对今天的市场，从零开始构建你的期权交易策略。

Learn tools and achieve the right mindset to face today's market confidently with me at how pros trade options and help build strategy from zero.

过去几年里，数百万新手散户，手头没多少钱，也毫无经验，和文基一起涌入了印度蓬勃发展的期权交易市场。

Over the past few years, millions of newly minted retail traders with a little money and zero experience flooded into India's booming options trading casino alongside Venky.

简直就像每天都在中彩票一样。

So it was like a like a jackpot lottery daily.

周一到周五，天天都这样。

We had Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, all those all these.

结果就成了一个赌坊。

So it became like a a gambling spot.

到2023年，印度的期权市场已经跻身全球最大的行列。

By 2023, India's options market had become one of the largest in the world.

也正是在那段时间，一家名为Jane Street的隐秘华尔街交易公司开始关注这里。

And it was around that time that it became the focus of a secretive Wall Street trading firm called Jane Street.

全球金融机构总在寻找新的机会、新的资产类别、新的市场。

Global financial institutions are always looking for a new opportunity, a new asset class, a new geography.

这是鲁帕克·霍斯。

This is Rupak Hos.

他是一位长期定居伦敦的企业战略顾问和研究分析师。

He is a longtime corporate strategist and research analyst based in London.

他多年来一直密切关注Jane Street，据他说，当期权市场开始兴起时，Jane Street已经在印度交易了几年，专门开发复杂的算法来识别有潜力的交易。

He's followed Jane Street pretty closely for years, and he says that by the time the options market started taking off, Jane Street had already been trading in India for a couple of years, developing fancy algorithms for identifying promising trades.

正是在期权交易爆发的时期，他们注意到了投资者和经济学家所说的套利机会。

And it was around the options boom that they seem to notice what is known to investors and economists as an arbitrage opportunity.

套利就是利用同一商品在不同市场的价格差异来获利。

Arbitrage means taking advantage of a difference in prices for the exact same thing.

比如说，你发现纽约的橙子卖五美元一个。

So let's say you find out that oranges are selling in New York for $5 apiece.

与此同时，芝加哥的橙子却卖十美元一个。

At the same time, they're selling for $10 in Chicago.

你可以花五十美元在纽约买进橙子，然后到芝加哥卖一百美元，赚取差价。

You could spend $50 on New York oranges, sell them in Chicago for 100, and pocket the difference.

这就是套利。

That is arbitrage.

但问题是，这类机会通常不会持续太久。

But the thing is, these opportunities don't usually last long.

你在纽约买橙子，是因为那儿便宜。

You bought the oranges in New York because they're cheap.

你在芝加哥卖橙子，是因为那儿贵。

You've sold the oranges in Chicago because they're expensive.

你相信，随着时间推移，芝加哥和纽约之间的信息流通会使得这两个价格逐渐趋同。

You believe over time, as information flow between Chicago and New York is shared, the fundamentals are gonna mean that those two prices close.

套利的关键在于发现价格差异，并在机会还在的时候，有足够的资金和能力去操作。

The key to arbitrage is recognizing a price differential and having the money and ability to trade on that information while the getting is good.

因为从理论上讲，一旦交易开始，价格差异就会慢慢消失。

Because eventually, in theory, the act of trading should cause the price difference to disappear.

在印度期权市场，Jane Street发现的价格差异，其实是某些期权价格和它们所对应的标的股票价格之间的不平衡。

And when it came to the Indian options market, the price differential, the arbitrage opportunity that Jane Street noticed, had to do with the imbalance between the price of some options and the price of the underlying stocks they were betting on.

这正是Jane Street策略的核心所在。

And this is kind of the key to Jane Street's strategy.

理论上，你可以根据标的股票的价格、股价波动率，以及期权到期时间，算出一个期权应有的价值。

You see, in theory, you should be able to calculate what the value of an option should be based on things like the price of the stock it's betting on, the stock's volatility, and the amount of time before the option expires.

但在印度期权市场，期权价格一直偏离理论应有的水平。

But in the Indian options market, the option prices kept diverging from where they should be in theory.

因为大量经验不足的日内交易者跟着他们喜欢的金融博主瞎跟风下单。

Because of all those masses of relatively inexperienced day traders placing bets based on, you know, whatever their favorite finfluencer said.

一旦大家集体买入或卖出，价格就被拖着往一个方向走。

When they all bought or sold swarming on one side or another, they often took the price with them.

这意味着有时候人们为某些期权支付的价格，远高于它们理论上的价值。

That means sometimes people were paying more for some options than the options were theoretically worth.

借助强大的算法，Jane Street 能够捕捉到这些转瞬即逝的机会。

And using high powered algorithms, Jane Street was able to identify these fleeting windows of opportunity.

套利。

Arbitrage.

等等。

Hey.

这正是套利。

That's an arbitrage.

只要Jane Street发现套利机会，他们就会立刻行动，因为他们有资金和能力迅速在交易的另一端布局。

And if Jane Street saw an arbitrage opportunity, they cracked because they had the money and the wherewithal to quickly set up shop on the other side of the trade.

他们会尽可能多地以被抬高的价格卖出这些期权，直到需求回落为止。

They could sell as many of those options at that inflated price as possible until demand came back down.

Rupak说，这就像Jane Street发现了一片开阔的海洋，里面全是成群结队、毫无防备的美味鱼群。

Rupak says it was like Jane Street had discovered an open ocean filled with schools of tasty defenseless fish.

他们进场了。

They entered.

他们看到了套利机会，也注意到没有鲨鱼出没，也没有监管机构在场。

They saw the arbitrage opportunity, and they saw that the sharks were not there and the regulators were not there.

从2023年至少开始，Jane Street每个月都反复操作这种交易几十次，最终累积了数十亿美元的利润，而外界对此毫不知情。

Starting at least in 2023, Jane Street began running variations of this trade dozens of times, month after month, eventually racking up billions of dollars in profits, all without anyone outside the firm any the wiser.

直到后来，有几位Jane Street的交易员跳槽去了竞争对手公司。

Until, of course, a couple of Jane Street traders decamped for a competitor.

现在有一起诉讼。

There's a lawsuit.

去年四月，在曼哈顿的一场关键庭审中，彭博社记者克里斯·多尔梅茨赫首次向外界披露，一直以来默默获利的正是简街资本。

And last April, on that fateful day in a Manhattan courtroom, Bloomberg reporter Chris Dolmetsch and the wider world first heard that it was Jane Street who'd been quietly winning all along.

但简街资本赚的这些钱，总得有人买单吧。

But all of the profits Jane Street was raking in had to be coming from somewhere.

广告之后，印度监管机构将梳理出，哪些人是这场精明交易的对手方，以及他们输得有多惨。

After the break, Indian regulators tally up who had been on the other side of this clever, clever trading strategy and just how badly they had been losing.

今年四月，当简街资本从印度期权市场赚取至少十亿美元的消息传出时，反应不一。

When news broke in April about how Jane Street had minted at least a billion dollars from the Indian options market, the reaction was mixed.

其他华尔街公司对此感到好奇，但印度证交会（SEBI）的监管者们却一点也不高兴。

Other Wall Street firms were intrigued, but regulators with the Securities and Exchange Board of India or SEBI, they were less than thrilled.

SEBI其实就是印度的证券交易委员会。

SEBI is basically the SEC of India.

他们的职责之一，就是保护印度投资者，确保市场公平运行。

They are in part tasked with protecting Indian investors and ensuring fair play in their markets.

过去几年来，他们一直对印度期权市场的剧烈波动和快速增长感到担忧。

And they've been concerned about the volatility and rapid growth in the Indian options market for a couple of years.

他们知道，让数百万没有经验的日内交易者拿全部积蓄去赌博，是个极其危险的局面。

They knew that having millions of inexperienced day traders gambling with their life savings was a potentially dangerous situation.

所以几年前，这个监管机构SEBI决定深入调查这些低收入和中等收入的印度日内交易者到底过得怎么样。

So a few years ago, this regulatory agency, SEBI, decided to dig into how these lower and middle income Indian day traders were actually faring.

就像文基这样的人。

You know, people like Venky.

SEBI完成了一份报告，发现大约90%的普通散户在期权交易中亏了钱。

SEBI completed a report, and what they found was that about 90% of everyday retail investors were losing money on options trading.

十个人里有九个亏钱，也就是说大约四百万人蒙受了损失。

Nine out of 10 people, which meant about 4,000,000 people had lost money.

平均每人亏损的金额，接近印度普通人一年的收入。

On average, they were each losing nearly half the typical annual income in India.

现在，SEBI和其他人已经很清楚，大量资金正流向那些藏在暗处的、资金雄厚的交易机构。

Now it was clear to SEBI and others that a lot of that money was going to sophisticated, well funded trading institutions lurking under the surface.

但直到去年四月那场意外的法庭披露，人们才真正明白，Jane Street才是最大的赢家。

But it wasn't until those unexpected courtroom revelations last April that it became clear that Jane Street was the primary winner here.

Jane Street 似乎是帮助像 Venky 这样的人，在期权市场这个巨型赌场里下注的主要推手之一。

Jane Street seemed to have been one of the main players helping people like Venky place their questionable bets in the giant casino of the options market.

这简直成了每天都能中奖的彩票。

It became like a daily jackpot, lottery.

问题是，当我们赚快钱的时候，就容易上头。

The problem is that when we make quick money, we get carried away.

结果就看不到自己同样有可能亏掉这些钱。

So we don't see there is an equal chance of losing it.

你描述的这种让你陷入困境的心态，是不是就是一种赌徒心态？

When you describe the kind of mindset that's gotten you into trouble, I mean, it like a sort of gambling mindset?

对，没错。

Yeah, that's right.

没错。

That's right.

这种赌徒心态，一直藏在我心里。

This gambler's mindset is was inside me.

这真是个坏习惯。

So that's a bad habit.

我知道。

I know.

Vicky说，有一段时间他确实赢了。

Vicky says for a time, he was winning.

有段时间，他一个月内赚到了投资金额的25倍。

At one point, he did manage to make around 25 times his investment in a month.

但他表示，很快就输了个精光，甚至还欠了债。

But he says he quickly lost all of it and even started going into debt.

一旦欠下小笔债务，为了补回损失，我又去交易了。

Once a small debt started, to make up that loss, I again traded.

然后就陷入了一个恶性循环。

Then it became a vicious cycle.

我开始承担大得多的风险，做更冒险的交易，结果债务越滚越大。

I took much, much bigger risk, much, riskier trades, and, and it's, started ballooning.

2024年1月的几天里，本克遭遇了有史以来最惨重的亏损。

Over the course of a few days in January 2024, Benke had his worst loss ever.

他仅仅做了几笔交易，就亏了大约一万两千美元。

He lost around $12,000 in just a couple trades.

你觉得你亏掉的那笔钱，是不是有一部分进了简街的口袋？

Do you think that some of the money that you lost went to Jane Street?

毫无疑问，这一点毋庸置疑。

Definitely, there's no question at all.

真正赚走我们钱的，就是他们。

They are the people who made money out of us.

事实上，在1月的某一天，据称简街从像本克这样的交易员身上赚了数以千万计的美元。

In fact, during one of those days in January, Jane Street was allegedly making millions upon millions of dollars from traders like Vanke.

正是这类巨额盈利，促使印度证交会启动了对简街的调查，而调查结果揭示了简街在印度期权市场上的真实面目。

It was those kinds of winnings that led SEBI to open an investigation into Jane Street's trading, And that investigation painted a very different picture of what Jane Street was up to in the Indian options market.

对于简街在印度的所作所为，基本上有两种解读方式。

There are basically two ways of looking at what Jane Street was doing in India.

从Jane Street的角度看，他们在印度所做的只是经典的套利行为。

From the Jane Street perspective, what they were doing in India was just classic arbitrage.

他们只是用复杂的算法捕捉期权市场中短暂的价格差异，满足市场需求，让交易者能够买卖任何他们想要的期权，直到价格最终回归理论价值。

They were just using fancy algorithms to identify momentary price differentials in the options market and meeting market demand, enabling traders to buy or sell whatever options they wanted until eventually the prices came closer into line with their theoretical value.

在经济学里，套利有利于市场效率，因为它能帮助揭示价格的真实水平。

And in economics, arbitrage is good for the efficiency of the market because it helps to reveal what prices should really be.

Jane Street提供了一个交易平台。

Jane Street was providing a surface.

没错，Jane Street确实从中赚了钱，但这也意味着更少的人在期权上付多了或付少了。

And, yes, Jane Street got to make money from this, but it also meant that fewer people were now over or underpaying for options.

但SEBI认为，Jane Street是在操纵市场。

But the SEBI view was that Jane Street was manipulating the market.

后来我们联系了SEBI。

Now we reached out to SEBI.

他们拒绝接受采访，但发布了一份针对Jane Street的详细指控文件。

They declined to be interviewed, but they did release a detailed complaint they brought against Jane Street.

证交所重点关注了高盛在几笔特别赚钱的交易日上的操作。

SEBI zeroed in on a few particularly profitable trading days for Jane Street.

我们的高盛观察员鲁帕克·科斯把我们引向了其中最赚钱的一天——2024年1月17日。

Our Jane Street watcher, Rupak Khos, pointed us to the most lucrative of those days, 01/17/2024.

他说，那天涉及的期权交易集中在该国最大几家银行股票的指数上。

He says on that day, the options trades in question were focused on an index of the country's largest bank stocks.

实际情况是，这个银行指数的期权价格比现货价格高出了一个百分点以上。

So what what happened is the options price for the index, the bank's index, was over 1% above the cash price.

这就形成了套利空间。

So there was an arbitrage.

那天早上，市场对期权的需求非常旺盛，尤其是大量押注这些股票在当天到期前会上涨。

That morning, the market seemed to be clamoring for options, specifically betting that the stocks were gonna go up in value by the time the options expired at the end of the day.

这种狂热的需求推高了期权价格，比它们理论上应该对应股票的价格高出了一点五个百分点。

That frothy demand was driving the price some 1.5% above where they theoretically should be relative to the stocks they were tied to.

于是高盛开始向像文凯这样的散户交易员出售他们急需的期权。

So Jane Street started selling everyday day traders like Venke the options they were demanding.

与此同时，Jane Street 开始大量买入看跌这些股票的期权押注。

And at the same time, Jane Street started buying up bets that the stocks would go down at the end of the day.

此外，当天上午作为套利策略的一部分，Jane Street 似乎也开始买入这些基础股票。

Also, as part of their arbitrage play that morning, Jane Street appears to have started buying the underlying stocks.

这些股票在当天收盘时的价格，将决定哪些押注能赢、哪些会输。

This is the stock whose price at the end of the day would determine which bets won and which ones lost.

别忘了，印度股市的交易者数量有限，所以大额买入很容易推高股价。

And remember, the stock market in India doesn't have as many traders, so big purchases can make prices go up a lot.

根据印度证交会的说法，Jane Street 最终买入的股票总额，达到了这些基础股票当日总交易额的15到25倍。

And according to SEBI, Jane Street ended up buying somewhere between 1525% of the traded value of the underlying stocks.

印度证交会认为，印度的日内交易者看到基础股票价格稳住甚至上涨，于是纷纷加码，押注股价在到期前还会继续上升。

SEBI argued that Indian day traders saw the underlying stock prices hold or even grow in value, and they started pouring more and more of their money into bets that it would go up by expiration.

监管机构表示，这种走势诱使交易者做出了错误的决策。

And the regulator said that enticed traders into making the wrong bets.

这正是印度证交会认为 Jane Street 操纵市场的其中一个手段。

That was one part of how SEBI thought Jane Street manipulated the market.

SEBI认为，如果Jane Street只是在做套利，那么他们买入股票的规模应该和他们的期权押注相匹配。

SEBI argues that if Jane Street was simply doing arbitrage, their stock purchases should have been equal in size to their options bets.

但在这里，Jane Street的期权押注规模却是股票买入的七倍。

But here, Jane Street's options bet was seven times bigger.

SEBI指控，Jane Street的第二个操纵手段，是金融圈里所谓的‘收盘定价’。

Jane Street's second big manipulative tactic, SEBI alleged, was doing something known in the financial world as marking the close.

这一点让SEBI特别愤怒。

This is the thing that SEBI seemed really mad about.

简单来说，在交易日的最后一小时，Jane Street开始抛售他们持有的大量股票。

Basically, in the final hour of the trading day, Jane Street began to sell their enormous stock holdings.

这一抛售直接导致整个指数价格下跌。

That sell off ended up sinking the price of the whole index.

而由于Jane Street押注指数在收盘时会下跌，他们的期权因此大获全胜。

And since Jane Street had made an options bet that the index price would fall by the end of the day, their options bet paid off big time.

SEBI认为，Jane Street实际上操纵了结果，人为制造了他们所押注的未来。

SEBI says Jane Street had essentially fixed the outcome and created the future they'd bet would happen.

而所有赌指数会上涨的交易对手，都赔上了他们买期权的钱。

And all the people on the other side of the trade, like who'd bet that the number would go up, they lost the money they'd spent on the options.

据SEBI称，Jane Street通过故意误导散户交易员，在一天内净赚了约八千三百万美元。

While Jane Street ultimately netted around $83,000,000 in one day by intentionally misleading day traders according to SEBI.

SEBI表示，Jane Street在过去两年多的时间里一直使用类似手段，非法获利超过五亿美元。

SEBI says Jane Street had used similar tactics for over two years, making over $500,000,000 illegally.

今年七月，SEBI发布了一项临时命令，也就是一种临时法院禁令，宣布禁止Jane Street在印度市场进行交易。

This past July, SEBI filed an interim order, a sort of temporary court order against Jane Street, and announced they would be banned from trading on Indian markets.

我们的Jane Street观察员鲁帕克·科什说，SEBI其实别无选择，因为在他们看来，SEBI和印度国家证券交易所一直在拼命追赶。

Rupak Khosh, our Jane Street watcher, says SEBI kinda had to do something because to him, it looked like SEBI and India's national stock exchange were playing catch up.

印度监管机构当时根本没在履职。

Well, the Indian regulator was sleeping at the wheel.

这本质上是外国投机者对普通投资者的掠夺——数十亿美元从印度散户的口袋里流走，最终进了曼哈顿的口袋。

This is about the foreign raider against the little guy because billions of dollars has left the Indian retail investor's pocket and has arrived in Manhattan.

我们联系了Jane Street。

We reached out to Jane Street.

他们表示不认同SEBI的指控，并会与监管机构进行沟通。

They said they dispute SEBI's claims and will engage with the regulator.

一份泄露的内部备忘录中，他们告诉员工，SEBI误解了指数套利的一些基本原理。

In a leaked memo, they told their own employees that SEBI was misunderstanding some of the fundamental principles of index arbitrage.

他们还称，这些交易活动明确有利于金融市场的健康运行。

They also said that the trading activity was, quote, unambiguously good for the health of financial markets.

如果没有像Jane Street这样的参与者，印度衍生品市场就无法与实体经济建立联系。

In the absence of participants like Jane Street, there would be no economic link between the Indian derivatives market and the underlying economy, close quote.

至于他们大规模的股票买入，这可以解释为对冲风险的一种方式。

As for their massive stock purchases, that could be explained as a way to hedge their bet.

至于他们在交易日最后一小时抛售股票、压低价格的行为，实际上Jane Street早在通常收盘窗口前半小时就开始抛售了。

As for their stock sell off right in the final hour of the trading day that pushed down the price, Jane Street actually started selling their stock thirty minutes before the window usually considered marking the close.

因此，这次抛售看起来只是日常平仓的常规操作。

So that sell off could be seen as a routine way of exiting a position at the end of the day.

Jane Street宣布将积极在印度法院为自己辩护，并已就此向SEBI提出上诉。

Jane Street announced they would be defending themselves vigorously in the Indian courts, and they have since filed an appeal against SEBI.

他们说，证交所监察部门早前就调查过这件事，根本没有发现任何操纵证据。

They say an earlier investigation by SEBI's surveillance unit had already looked into this and didn't find any proof of manipulation.

这一切到底算正常套利还是市场操纵，最终得由印度司法体系来定夺。

Whether all this will count as regular arbitrage or market manipulation will be up to the Indian legal system to decide.

但Jane Street通过将超过十亿美元存入托管账户，成功让交易禁令被撤销了。

But Jane Street was able to get the trading ban lifted by forging over half $1,000,000,000 into an escrow account.

但鲁帕克·霍奇表示，即使Jane Street最终在法律上败诉、缴纳了罚款，这家公司的财务状况依然大获全胜。

But Rupak Hoch says that even if Jane Street does ultimately lose the legal fight and forfeit the fines they've handed over, the firm is still financially way ahead.

过去几年，Jane Street在这一市场上的获利显然超过了四百亿美元。

Jane Street appears to have made well over $4,000,000,000 in this market over the past couple years.

我个人觉得，五十亿美元根本就是小钱。

My personal view is is it's the $500,000,000 is chump change.

完全无关紧要。

It's irrelevant.

但Jane Street还面临另一种潜在代价。

But there is another kind of potential cost for Jane Street.

印度的期权市场热潮已经差不多结束了。

The options market gold rush in India is sort of over.

Jane Street 现在不再像以前那样在印度交易期权了。

Jane Street no longer appears to be trading options in India like they were.

印度监管机构已经限制了期权到期的频率，还提高了参与期权交易的资金门槛。

Indian regulators have cracked down on the frequency of options expirations, and they've raised the capital requirements for people to be allowed to trade options.

更重要的是，Jane Street 在印度的交易被曝光后，引发了监管方面的强烈反应，现在所有人都盯上他们了。

And maybe more importantly, the revelation of Jane Street's India trade and the regulatory backlash have put them on everyone's radar.

比如说，我们现在就在讨论他们。

For example, we are talking about them right now.

你好啊，Jane Street。

Hi, Jane Street.

那么，你怎么看 Jane Street 决定以这种方式起诉前交易员，结果反而把这笔交易给曝光了？

So what do you make of the decision then on Jane Street's part to sue their former traders in this way that ultimately exposed this trade?

在英国，我们有句老话，叫‘捡了芝麻丢了西瓜’，这事儿就是典型的捡了芝麻丢了西瓜。

In England, we have a saying, penny wise pound foolish, and that was penny wise pound foolish.

这根本不是什么 proprietary 算法。

This is not some proprietary algorithm.

这不是什么纳什坐在普林斯顿，墙上写满数学公式，拉塞尔·克罗演的《美丽心灵》，还得个诺贝尔奖那种事儿。

This is not, like, whatever, Nash sitting in Princeton in the beautiful mind, mathematical formulas on the wall, Russell Crowe, Nobel.

这纯粹就是老派的投机钻营，操纵市场。

This is just plain old school hustling, bullying markets.

这种事，还得持续好多年。

For that, this is gonna go on for years.

顺便说一句，去年 Jane Street 和 Millennium 就那起窃取交易机密的官司达成了和解，赔偿金额未公开。

By the way, Jane Street and Millennium ended up settling that lawsuit over stolen trade secrets last year for an undisclosed amount.

至于日内交易员文卡特什·乌帕德亚，他相信印度监管机构会追究 Jane Street 在他看来不公平且操纵市场的行为。

As for day trader Venkatesh Upadhyay, he has faith that India's regulators will hold Jane Street accountable for what he sees as an unfair and manipulative strategy.

但他也责怪这些监管机构放任市场失控，同时责怪自己一再做出高风险的押注。

But he also blames those same regulators for letting the market get so out of control, and he blames himself for making risky bets over and over again.

本克说，他因日内交易期权欠下的债务已经涨到了大约 35 万美元。

Benke says his debts from day trading options have grown to around $350,000.

他的妻子和孩子都为他感到担忧和失望。

His wife and children are worried and disappointed in him.

尽管如此，文基仍坚持认为，摆脱这种困境的唯一出路，就是回到让他陷入困境的市场。

Still, Venky insists that the only way out of this precarious situation is through the market that brought him there.

那你还会继续在印度期权市场交易吗？

So will you continue to trade in the Indian options market?

确实不一样。

Different definitely.

除了期权交易，别无选择。

There is no option but to only trade in options.

除了期权市场，没别的路可走。

No option but the options market.

没错。

Yep.

因为只有交易，才能让我摆脱这笔债务。

Because trading is the only way that can bring me out of this debt.

Venky很清楚，自己总是要和那些资金更雄厚、策略更迅捷精妙的金融大鳄打交道，他们手握巨资，能抓住每一个机会。

Venky knows he will always be swimming with far bigger financial fish with faster and more sophisticated strategies and massive piles of money to take advantage of every opportunity they find.

但他希望，只要自己足够自律，下次至少不会输得一塌糊涂。

But he is hoping that if he's disciplined enough, maybe next time he won't come out on the bottom.

如果你想听更多关于金融圈那些离奇故事的节目，我们有一期讲一群数学极客，他们以为自己找到了消除投资风险的方法；还有一期讲乔治·索罗斯如何在三十年前击垮英镑。

If you wanna hear more episodes about the wacky world of finance, we have one about a group of math nerds who thought they found a way to take risk out of investing and another about how George Soros broke the British pound about three decades ago.

这些节目和本期节目的相关资料链接，都可以在我们的节目说明里找到。

You can find those episodes and links to some source material for this episode in our show notes.

本期节目由埃里克·门内尔制作，萨姆·黄马·凯斯勒和库珀·卡茨-麦金协助制作。

This episode was produced by Eric Mennel with production help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Cooper Katz-McKim.

剪辑由杰丝·江负责，音效由吉米·吉利完成。

It was edited by Jess Jiang and engineered by Jimmy Geely.

事实核查由我们的执行制片人西耶拉·华雷斯负责，执行制片人是亚历克斯·戈德马克。

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez, our executive producer, is Alex Goldmark.

我们非常感谢奥姆卡尔·孔迪卡尔提供的报道支持，也特别感谢罗伯特·吉罗、梅南克·邦萨尔和诺埃尔·萨尔达纳。

We had invaluable reporting help from Omkar Kondikar, and special thanks to Robert Giro, Mayank Bonsal, and Noel Saldana.

我是亚历克西·霍罗维茨-加齐。

I'm Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi.

我是玛丽·柴尔兹。

I'm Mary Childs.

这里是美国国家公共电台。

This is NPR.

感谢收听。

Thanks for listening.