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 has been named one of “Chicago’s 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For” in 2011 and 2012, as well as being recognized as a National winner in the same years.

In 2013, Spot announced several exciting leadership changes to ensure the firm continues to thrive in the marketplace. Rob Merrilees assumed the newly established role of Chairman beginning April 1. Additionally, Steve Brodsky, Spot’s former CFO, was appointed Chief Executive Officer.

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, quantitative analysis, 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. Our approach has generated new business opportunities such as market making, and our expertise has expanded into a variety of additional derivative products that continue to leverage the skills of our people.