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A former Jane Street Group trader who moved to Millennium Management ridiculed his former employer’s claims that he used its secret strategy to make a killing at his new job in India’s options market.Responding to a lawsuit filed by Jane Street this month, Douglas Schadewald said it was “not only wrong, but impossible” that he and a fellow defector, Daniel Spottiswood, cost the company more than $150 million in profits between February and March when they went to work for rival Millennium. Labeling Jane Street’s claim as “reckless speculation,” Schadewald said the amount the duo brought in for Millennium through mid-April was about $4 million.In its complaint, Jane Street accused the two of using its “immensely valuable” proprietary strategy in their new jobs. Jane Street said its profits from using the strategy fell by 50% in March, a drop it said could only be attributable to “the entrance of a competitor using the same strategy.” The description of the strategy was heavily redacted in Jane Street’s complaint.In a signed statement, Schadewald denied using Jane Street’s strategies or any of its confidential intellectual property and said his name was being smeared “to try to prevent me from doing honest work for a competitor.”ALSO READ | Jane Street's $1-billion trade puts the spotlight on Indian optionsHe suggested that Jane Street’s losses could be due to a risky trading strategy. “Millennium mandated daily loss limits — i.e., the amount of capital that my team and I are permitted to risk losing in a given day,” he said in the filing. On the other hand, “Jane Street took an extreme amount of risk,” according to Schadewald’s statement, which made it “susceptible to very large drawdowns in large market moves.”In a separate declaration, Spottiswood also denied wrongdoing.“At Millennium, I have not used, and do not intend to use, any trade secrets, confidential information, or proprietary information of Jane Street,” he said. Instead, Spottiswood said, he relies on “general skills, knowledge, and experience” and publicly available information, as well as what he learned before he worked for Jane Street.Jane Street representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.At a hearing last week in Manhattan, US District Judge Paul Engelmayer denied Jane Street’s request for an order barring Millennium and the two traders from using the strategy at issue, saying the firm could be compensated if it’s found to have suffered any harm. Engelmayer put the case on an expedited schedule, setting a trial date in July.A Jane Street lawyer said at the hearing that the strategy was one of the firm’s most lucrative and expressed fear that even identifying the country involved would lead to others “picking apart” the details. Lawyers for the defendants inadvertently revealed during the hearing that the strategy involved options trading in India.Schadewald said in his statement that Jane Street expected him to draw on his previous experience working for Barclays and is now faulting him for again drawing on the expertise he has built up, this time at a new employer.He said that as far as he could tell from court filings, the “strategy” Jane Street is trying to protect “would cover any type of options trading in India.”“The complaint appears to suggest that the existence of inefficiencies within the Indian options market and the size of this market are trade secrets or proprietary to Jane Street,” according to Schadewald’s statement.The case is Jane Street Group LLC v. Millennium Management LLC, 24-cv-02783, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

Gold prices have dropped by Rs 2,900 in just 10 days to Rs 71,065 per 10 grams from a lifetime high of Rs 73,958 as investors shrugged off geopolitical worries related to the Middle East conflict. Gold prices on MCX for June futures contracts rose by Rs 36 to trade at Rs 71,065 per 10 grams on Wednesday while MCX May silver contracts were up by Rs 172 or 0.21% to Rs 80,850 per kg.Safe-haven buying amid conflict between Iran and Israel had made gold prices rise to their lifetime high at Rs 73,958 on 12th April.On Tuesday, the gold June futures =settled on a flat note at Rs 71,014 per 10 grams with a loss of 0.02% and the silver May futures contract settled Rs 21 or 0.02% down at Rs 80,657 per kilogram. “Akshyay Tritiya is around the corner, so consumers are thinking that this is a great opportunity to buy and more importantly I think that the global uncertainties continued to remain, the war between Israel & Hamas, or Russia, Ukraine, or even the way the other geo-political tensions in SouthEast Asia, & China side it continues to remain so that any bad news will make the gold price jump again,” says Suvankar Sen, MD & CEO, Senco Gold & Diamonds.“I think this is more of a profit booking for which the prices have come down” adds Sen. “Consumers also need to realise that the risks and workable political tensions do not go away. Plus, if the US reports start coming negative with regards to unemployment, the interest rate reduction will also be on the cards. So, I think consumers have realised that and are coming and trying to buy jewellery, fearing that gold prices will go up again.”Gold prices edged lower on Wednesday, as fears of an escalation in the Middle East conflict eased, while investors waited for crucial U.S. economic data that could shed more light on the timing of interest rate cuts.In the U.S. markets, spot gold was down 0.1% at $2,320.19 per ounce, as of 0115 GMT, having hit its lowest since April 5 in the previous session. Bullion's March to April rally drove it up by nearly $400 to an all-time high of $2,431.29 on April 12.U.S. gold futures were down 0.4% at $2,333.80 per ounce and the markets are awaiting the March personal consumption expenditure (PCE) data - the Fed's preferred inflation gauge - later this week to further ascertain the trajectory of monetary policy.Today, the US Dollar Index, DXY, was below the 106 mark at Rs 105.67, losing 0.01 or 0.01%.International and domestic silver prices also steadied in Tuesday’s session.“From an intraday perspective, international gold prices have started marginally in the red this early Wednesday morning in Asian trade as traders look to data for cues on the monetary policy outlook from the Fed,” said Sriram Iyer, Senior Research Analyst at Reliance Securities.“The range for MCX gold June is 70,400 to 71,400, while that for MCX silver May is 81,400 to 82,900,” added Iyer.(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)