One of Citi's top U.S. quant equities traders just left the bank

It's a day for disappearances. First, came Chris Innes, U.S. head of equities at BNP Paribas. Now it looks like Raj Nagella, one of Citi's most senior quantitative equities traders has gone too.

There is no one with Nagella's name on Citi's internal directory and insiders say he's left. Citi confirmed Nagella's disappearance.

The exit comes after Citi's equities sales and trading revenues declined nearly 11% year-on-year in the second quarter. At J.P. Morgan equities revenuens were down just 1% over the same period.

Nagella joined Citi in 2008 after leaving Bank of America. He held various positions at the U.S. bank, including head of U.S. algorithmic trading products and head of the Americas execution platform. His LinkedIn profile says he was made global head of cash products in 2014, but Citi insiders say he was a mere "quantitative analyst". Nagella began his banking career at Goldman Sachs in 2001, where he helped popularize the use of algorithms in the trading business.

Observers suggest Nagella's exit is symptomatic of Murray Roos's growing influence. Roos joined Citi from Deutsche in 2015 and is global co-head of equities with Dan Keegan.  Nagella isn't the only change at the top of Citi's equities business this year. Ryan Gould, a former equities MD left to manage the central risk book at UBS in May and Tom Chippas joined as global head of quantitative execution from blockchain start-up Axoni in June (Chippas was formerly CEO of Citadel Technology LLC).

Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

Photo credit: citi by Tamas Neltz is licensed under CC BY 2.0.