Bio Page for Jason Urban

Jason Urban

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Jason Urban has spent over 20 years in the equity and volatility trading primarily focused on broad based equity index volatility strategies.

Mr. Urban founded the equity index derivative business at DRW in 2009. At DRW, the unit focused on market making and volatility arbitrage in the S&P volatility complex, taking advantage of mispricings and flow across S&P, VIX, and the OTC markets. This strategy was expanded into the NDX and Russel 2000 indices in short order and the methodology was eventually rolled out to the European and Asian broad-based indices.

Prior to coming to DRW, Mr. Urban ran the Goldman Sachs equity volatility market making business (2000-2009) engaging in similar volatility arbitrage and direction strategies while becoming familiar with the protocols of the OTC and inter-dealer market. Prior to working with GS, Mr. Urban broke into the business at Merrill Lynch in their equity specialist group.

Mr. Urban has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BS/BA (Finance and Marketing) from Georgetown University. Additionally, he has his Series 3, 63, 7 and 24 registrations.

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(Kitco commentary) - This old Irish blessing, which can also be construed as a curse, sums up 2020 for me, which has certainly been interesting for all the wrong reasons. The Coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic disruption has left all of us in a precarious position.