FAQ

1. What is proprietary trading?

Unlike a hedge fund, Spot does not manage other people’s capital. As a proprietary trading firm we are responsible for managing and deploying our own capital. Beyond capital, we also rely on our own proprietary ideas, and are not confined by some external shareholder charter to direct how we can trade. Because of this fact, we are able to stay nimble in evolving our approach to trading; in fact, this is a source of competitive advantage we have versus larger players in the industry.

2. What products do you trade?

Spot trades the entire US listed single stock and ETF marketplace, numbering over 3500 individual underlying securities. We are also active in many of the volatility linked products in the marketplace. We have plans to be trading some of the commodity futures and options products in the near future.

3. Is Spot a market maker?

Yes, Spot is a registered market maker on the ARCA, Amex, and CBOE exchanges for a variety of ETF and equity products.

4. Do you have a presence on the floor?

Spot maintains no physical presence on any of the exchange floors we trade. Our trading is managed and executed off-floor via our office in downtown Chicago.

5. Are you a high frequency trading firm?

There are many definitions in the marketplace as to what high frequency trading is. While we rely heavily on technology and low-latency network infrastructure that allows us to access the markets in a highly efficient manner, we do not consider ourselves managing a high frequency trading “strategy” that looks to take advantage of regulatory or market structure driven arbitrage. Although the trend in electronic and algorithmic execution still continues to evolve, we still believe that there is a strong need for trader guidance to factor into our systems. There are still market scenarios that traders can react to more efficiently than machines.

6. Do you have other offices outside of Chicago?

Our Chicago office is our only office. Chicago has long been at the center of the derivatives industry and a leader in the evolution of risk management. In recent years, Chicago has also been home to the growth of many proprietary trading firms.

7. Does Spot develop its own software?

Spot relies heavily on a large internal team of software architects, developers, network specialists, QA analysts and database experts to develop most of its own software for proprietary use. While the majority of the system is built in-house, we do buy best-of-breed components or utilize open source solutions for the application infrastructure including messaging and core libraries. We primarily develop in either C# or C++, running alongside Windows and Linux.

8. What is Spot’s Technology approach?

In recent years, our technology team has focused on building the anatomy of a trading system that can evolve to support new trading strategies and business direction. The platform is a collection of services that enables us to scale and innovate on components without having to redesign other parts of the system.

We use Agile development methodologies to enable short release cycles to provide rapid business feedback. This approach is also applied to non-development technical projects. Test automation has become increasingly important as the complexity of the system grows, the code base expands, and automated trading increases.

9. Does Spot offer benefits?

Absolutely! We value our people and provide them and their families with competitive benefits and perks such as health insurance, complimentary breakfast and lunch, 401k plan, professional development, etc. Click here to learn more about benefits at Spot.

10. How do I join Spot’s team?

We are always looking for passionate, talented individuals in all competencies across the firm. Whether as a full-time trader, software engineer or support intern, we encourage you to apply if you are up for the challenge. Click here to see current opportunities or for general submission.

11. Does Spot recruit on campus?

Yes, we travel to over 20 top universities and colleges across the country every year. Click here to see if Spot is coming to your school and learn more about our STP Training Program. Don’t see your school on this list? Students are always welcome to apply directly online.

12. What do I do after I submit my resume?

Spot’s recruiting team reviews every resume that is submitted. If your qualifications are a match we will reach out to you directly when appropriate. If you are not a match for a current opening, we will keep your resume in our online database for future opportunities.