How well regarded is Knight Financial Products as a derivative trading house?Thanks,JABS

Haven't seen them at all in interest rate derivatives. I'd think they focus primarily in equity derivatives. Heard the name couple of times when studying in the States and have seen their building in San Jose. Apart from that the name hasn't crossed me during my employment in Europe.

I used to work at Knight Securities (equities branch). As nasdaq market makers they were the largest (might still be). About a couple of years ago things were abit chaotic there, lots of management turnover. For a while the derivatives guys were running the whole operation. At least the ones in management seemed to be smart: good mixture of academic and trading backgrounds. I've heard KFP is not the friendliest place to work.

Thanks for the responses.I was more impressed with the folks in management than the foot soldiers.At the end of the day, I took considerably less money to wotk at BNP Paribas thinking that this was a better long term career move.Hope I'm right.JABS

For what it's worth, I think you were 100% correct.

The new management at Knight is pretty good. They moved one of the computer people out of daily operations, away from trading etc. The old management went to LaBranche and from what I hear, they're just as bad as when they were at Knight.

QuoteOriginally posted by: jabsThanks for the responses.I was more impressed with the folks in management than the foot soldiers.At the end of the day, I took considerably less money to wotk at BNP Paribas thinking that this was a better long term career move.Hope I'm right.JABSI heard that pay in the Equity Division of BNP PAribas is not that good "compared to comparable" bank : Socgen, where Equity (Derivatives) is the place to be as opposed to Fixed Income

Agreed. I was quite impressed with the management team and was asked some intelligent questions during the interview process. Acutally, had I gone to Knight I would have been trading equity derivatives. Instead, I went to FX Forwards at BNP which is obviously a more "prop trader" role. It was one of the hardest career choices I had to make. I had much more prior experience in equities and commodities than in fx/interest rates about which I knew very little. Indeed, I'm still getting used the idea of bid/ask spreads that are often narrower than a basis point! That is unheard of in natural gas .At the end of the day, I think I really needed the career stabililty. I was told that Knight used to employ over 140 traders in their Jersey Office a couple of years ago. That number now stands at around 40 and is expected to decline. That's a "high beta" bet. I think if I was still in my early 20s ... I might have taken that kind of risk. And I think it is true that equities are probably a great area to get into right now. But such is life ... you need to make your decisions and hope that you made the right ones more often than not...JABS

FX Forwards: That sounds interesting, I have the bad experience to see the traders iof those product in my former bank (Small French) who had some really strict limits to trade (they also did a lot of MMking) cos' their boss ain't got no balls "ratios are too high..... don't trade while I am on vacations....". this guys left recently.... Still, I am impressed to see people making money on such small B/A Spreads as you say. But a big bank willing to take agressive actions in a field like that can make some moneyKnight: I remember back in 2000, I was intern at an online brokerage in PAris, and Knight (the CEO) came to discuss about partnership for us to trade on the Nasdaq, we were expecting (thanks to JPM's report on online brokerage in 99 and 00) millions of trade from clients...... the guy from Knight came and said that he wanted to buy the LSE or some places like that... those guys were kings with the volume they had on the Nasdaq.