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> Wall Street trading desks have benefited in the past four years from large market swings around the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the decision by central banks to lift interest rates amid stubborn inflation.

So...by capitalizing on tragedy? (I know it's nothing new, it just makes me a little sad)

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Capitalizing on volatility and change. A lot of that change happens to be negative, but they’re generally not specifically targeting any direction.

I mean negative moves tend to be more volatile than positive ones, but yeah I don't think "capitalizing on tragedy" is the right way to frame it. Financial conditions during bad news events would turn out worse if there weren't these market makers providing liquidity. Some pharma companies profited from COVID but it was because of valuable services provided. If they didn't "capitalize on the tragedy" we'd have a bigger problem lol.

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