Article URL: https://www.panoptica.com/the-sound-of-inevitability/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49172609 Points: 4 # Comments: 1

Everyone is amazed by the ruthlessness / cunning of Citadel on this Situational (lack of) Awareness trade. Every day shit in physical commodities trading. Epsilon Theory Unplugged is an ongoing series featuring a rotating cast of authors. Each Tuesday, a new note is published. We cover a variety of topics, all focusing on our relationship with technology and ourselves. Sign up to keep up to date on the latest Unplugged notes. Kris Abdelmessih is not only a gifted derivatives trader, with a 20+ year career at Susquehanna and Parallax, but he is also a gifted writer with an amazing ability to explain the business of trading AND the underlying concepts of trading. Today Kris is one of the most widely-read voices in the trading and derivatives space, writing under his Moontower brand. [On the modern AI thesis] Aschenbrenner was early and smart and articulate about it. This allowed him to raise money, and the fact that it has been basically correct allowed him to return 270% through May. Leopold Aschenbrenner’s fund, Situational Awareness LP (SALP) started in late 2024 when he was 23. He raised $225mm and, through the use of leverage and being right as hell, rode a legendary heater with assets at peak over $25B about a month ago. His portfolio concentrated heavily on hardware and chip shares of CoreWeave, Nebius, Bloom Energy, Iris Energy, Micron and the Korean company SK Hynix, as well as a sizable private stake in Anthropic. Meanwhile, he was shorting traditional software companies. You only need to pull up the charts of his longs and shorts to explain how his returns had been so stellar. Many of his longs peaked in late June. On July 24th, he sent a memo to investors stating that the fund "has not been immune” to recent market volatility. He invited existing investors to commit fresh capital effective Aug 1, citing the most attractive opportunity set since early 2025. Within the week, SALP would proceed to lose 2/3 of its assets and liquidate its public portfolio to Citadel.