--- title: Why Market-Maker 13F Holdings Are Not Conviction type: learn slug: market-maker-13f-not-institutional-conviction-jane-street-citadel canonical_url: https://13finsight.com/learn/market-maker-13f-not-institutional-conviction-jane-street-citadel published_at: 2026-05-03T12:38:34.785Z updated_at: 2026-05-03T12:38:37.477Z author: Sarah Mitchell author_title: Education Editor author_url: https://13finsight.com/authors/sarah-mitchell word_count: 1042 locale: en source: 13F Insight --- # Why Market-Maker 13F Holdings Are Not Conviction > Susquehanna reports $4.4B of COIN. Jane Street reports $3.5B. Citadel Securities reports tens of billions across the market. None of it is institutional conviction. Here's what market-maker 13F notional really represents. The fastest way to misread a 13F filing is to treat market-maker holdings as institutional conviction. When SUSQUEHANNA INTERNATIONAL GROUP shows $4.4B in Coinbase, that is not $4.4B of long-only conviction capital. When JANE STREET GROUP shows $3.5B, that is not $3.5B of fundamental thesis. Both are reported notional from the firms' options market-making books, hedged against derivative inventory, and they flip with options-dealer gamma in days, not quarters.Reading 13F data well requires being able to identify market-maker holdings on sight, discount them out of the conviction read, and use them productively as a separate signal — usually about options-driven flow, not about institutional positioning.The Major Market-Maker FilersFive firms appear regularly in 13F filings as the dominant US options market makers:SUSQUEHANNA INTERNATIONAL GROUP, LLP — global options-trading firm, large options market-maker books across listed equity options.JANE STREET GROUP, LLC — quantitative trading firm with market-making operations across equities, ETFs, options, and crypto. The $662B of total reported value across the firm's filings reflects the scale of the inventory book.CITADEL SECURITIES — separate filing entity from Citadel Advisors (the multi-strategy hedge fund). Citadel Securities is the market-making arm; Citadel Advisors is the active asset manager. The two are distinct on 13F filings.CTC LLC, WOLVERINE TRADING, OPTIVER, IMC, DRW, GTS, FLOW TRADERS, JUMP TRADING, TWO SIGMA SECURITIES, VIRTU FINANCIAL — additional market-making firms that appear in 13F filings, with notional ranging from hundreds of millions to multi-billion on individual high-volume options names.13F Insight tags these filers with filer_type=market_maker. The platform's Smart Money surfaces filter them out by default, precisely because their reported value is not conviction capital. See the filer classification taxonomy →Why Market-Maker 13F Notional Is Hedged InventoryAn options market maker quotes two-sided markets in listed options across thousands of strikes and expiries. When customer flow buys calls (puts), the dealer sells calls (puts) and hedges by buying (selling) the underlying equity. The dealer's net delta exposure to the underlying equity at any moment is approximately zero — the long stock position is offset by the short option exposure, and the firm's economic risk is in volatility, gamma, and skew, not in directional equity exposure.What gets reported in the 13F is the long stock leg of those hedges. The corresponding short option positions and other derivatives are not 13F-reportable (13F captures only long equity positions above the threshold). The result is a 13F filing that lists billions of dollars of stock positions that bear no relationship to the firm's actual investment view.For high-volume options names — NVDA, TSLA, COIN, AAPL, MSFT, AMD, PLTR — the market-maker hedging book runs in the multiple-billions per name. Susquehanna alone often reports $1B+ of stock exposure across each of the top 20 options-active names in any given quarter. That number is not a long. It is a delta-hedge.The Citadel Distinction MattersThe single most important nuance in reading market-maker filings is recognizing that Citadel files two separate 13Fs:CITADEL ADVISORS LLC (CIK 0001423053) — Ken Griffin's multi-strategy hedge fund. This is active conviction capital. Position sizes reflect the firm's investment views. Filed AUM around $666B.CITADEL SECURITIES LLC — the market-making arm. This is hedged inventory across options, equities, and ETFs. Filed AUM is a separate disclosure.Reading a Coinbase or Tesla holder file and seeing 'CITADEL' often leads investors to assume the multi-strategy fund is positioning. They have to inspect the CIK or full filer name to know which Citadel entity is reporting. The platform's filer-type classifier resolves this distinction automatically.Real-World Examples of Market-Maker Notional MisreadsThree high-profile equities show how market-maker concentration distorts the conviction read:Coinbase Global (COIN). Top 10 holders include SUSQUEHANNA $4.4B, JANE STREET $3.5B, CTC $1.3B, WOLVERINE $1.2B. Total $10.4B of options-dealer inventory in a top 10. That number is larger than BlackRock's reported position, and it does not represent institutional conviction.NVIDIA (NVDA). Options market-maker positions across SUSQUEHANNA, JANE STREET, CITADEL SECURITIES, CTC routinely run in the multi-billion-per-firm range. Reading these as institutional positioning leads to misreading what is actually retail-driven options flow being hedged.GameStop (GME). Option-driven trading on GME produces large market-maker hedging books that show up as 13F-reported positions. The 'institutional ownership' signal is meaningfully smaller than the headline holder count suggests once market makers are filtered out.How to Use Market-Maker 13F Data ProductivelyMarket-maker 13F filings are not useless — they signal options-driven flow that is real and tradable. Three productive applications:Quarterly options-flow estimation. Quarter-over-quarter changes in market-maker position size reflect changes in net delta-hedge requirement, which is downstream of customer options flow. Rising market-maker stock positions on an equity often indicate retail call buying; falling positions often indicate retail put buying or call expiration.Volatility regime identification. When market-maker reported positions are unusually large relative to historical, the underlying volatility regime is typically elevated, with broader options demand pulling more delta-hedge stock onto dealer books.Cross-asset confirmation. Market-maker reported size in stock often confirms what the equity-options flow tape shows in real time — the 13F is a delayed confirmation, not a leading indicator, but it confirms the regime.Two Common MisreadsThe first misread is concluding that market-maker presence in a 13F is a bearish signal. It is not. Market-maker presence reflects options activity, which can be bullish, bearish, or neutral depending on the customer flow being hedged. The 13F notional alone tells you nothing about direction.The second misread is using market-maker reported value to estimate institutional float. Market-maker positions are delta-equivalent stock — they will be unwound mechanically as options expire or close. They are not part of the durable institutional float. Filing market-makers out before estimating institutional concentration produces a more accurate read.The Practical WorkflowBefore reading any 13F holder file, identify named market makers (Susquehanna, Jane Street, CTC, Wolverine, Citadel Securities, Optiver, IMC, DRW, GTS, Two Sigma Securities, Virtu, Jump Trading, Flow Traders).Use the filer-type classifier to filter them out of conviction analysis automatically.Use their position size separately as a read on options-driven flow rather than as institutional conviction.Pay particular attention to the Citadel distinction — Citadel Advisors is conviction capital, Citadel Securities is hedged inventory.Reading market-maker 13Fs correctly is the difference between treating $10B of COIN as institutional support versus understanding it as $10B of options-dealer inventory that will flip when the options book turns over. That distinction matters in every catalyst-driven equity trade. See current institutional conviction signals filtered for market-maker noise →. ## FAQ ### Why are market-maker 13F filings not institutional conviction? Market-maker 13F filings report the long stock leg of options-hedging books. The dealer's net delta exposure is approximately zero because the long stock is offset by short options. The reported $4B+ in any single name reflects hedged inventory, not investment view. The firm's actual economic risk is in volatility and gamma, not in directional equity exposure. ### What's the difference between Citadel Advisors and Citadel Securities in 13F filings? Citadel Advisors LLC is Ken Griffin's multi-strategy hedge fund — active conviction capital with investment views. Citadel Securities is the separate market-making arm — hedged inventory across options and equities. They file two separate 13Fs and represent completely different signal types. ### Which firms are the major market-maker 13F filers? The major US options market-makers in 13F data are Susquehanna International Group, Jane Street Group, Citadel Securities, CTC LLC, Wolverine Trading, Optiver, IMC, DRW, GTS, Flow Traders, Jump Trading, Two Sigma Securities, and Virtu Financial. 13F Insight tags them with filer_type=market_maker. ### Are market-maker 13F filings always neutral? On the institutional-conviction reading, yes — they are neutral by definition because they represent hedged inventory, not directional capital. But they are not signal-free: market-maker position size correlates with options-driven flow, which can confirm volatility regimes and customer-flow direction when read alongside the equity options tape. ### Does seeing market-makers in a 13F mean retail is heavily involved? Often yes for high-volume options names. Retail call buying (or put selling) creates customer flow that dealers hedge by buying the underlying stock — the long stock position appears in the dealer's 13F. Rising market-maker position size on a high-options-volume name often correlates with retail call activity. ### Which Citadel filing is the conviction signal? CITADEL ADVISORS LLC (CIK 0001423053) is Ken Griffin's multi-strategy hedge fund and represents active conviction capital. CITADEL SECURITIES is a separate entity for the market-making arm and represents hedged inventory. Always verify the CIK to know which Citadel entity is reporting in any 13F holder file. --- Source: 13F Insight — https://13finsight.com/learn/market-maker-13f-not-institutional-conviction-jane-street-citadel Author: Sarah Mitchell — https://13finsight.com/authors/sarah-mitchell Last updated: 2026-05-03T12:38:37.477Z