Our History

Founded in 1999 by Robert Merrilees, Spot began as a five member team focused on the off-floor trading of equity options. Since that time, Spot has expanded in reach, accomplishment, and size to become one of the leading proprietary trading firms in the industry. In recognition, Spot was named to the 2011 list of “Chicago’s 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For.”

Over the years, we have built the ability to attract, train, and deploy talented individuals as valuable contributors to our team. Spot has continued to grow and leverage an increasingly wide variety of disciplines, including trading, financial engineering, equity research, software development, and IT infrastructure. We have followed a formula of thoughtful, long term and sustainable growth that has led to success throughout a variety of challenging markets. This approach has led us into new business opportunities such as market making, and a variety of new derivative products that continue to leverage the skills of our people.