TransMarket Group (TMG) is a privately held quantitative

proprietary trading Proprietary trading (also known as prop trading) occurs when a trader trades stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, their derivatives, or other financial instruments with the firm's own money (instead of using customer funds) to make a profit ...

firm based in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

with additional offices in Puerto Rico and Switzerland.

Description

TMG was founded in 1980 by Ray Cahnman, a former floor trader, and has roughly 150 employees including interns. The firm's primary business is as an electronic

market maker A market maker or liquidity provider is a company or an individual that quotes both a buy and a sell price in a tradable asset held in inventory, hoping to make a profit on the difference, which is called the ''bid–ask spread'' or ''turn.'' Thi ...

in a diverse group of assets including

commodities In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. Th ...

government debt A country's gross government debt (also called public debt or sovereign debt) is the financial liabilities of the government sector. Changes in government debt over time reflect primarily borrowing due to past government deficits. A deficit occu ...

currencies A currency is a standardization of money in any form, in use or currency in circulation, circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a ''system of money'' in common use wi ...

, and

interest rates An interest rate is the amount of interest due per period, as a proportion of the amount lent, deposited, or borrowed (called the principal sum). The total interest on an amount lent or borrowed depends on the principal sum, the interest rate, ...

. TMG has been a major player in the markets since its founding and pioneered bond futures basis arbitrage at the inception of the

Chicago Board of Trade The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), is an American futures exchange, futures and options exchange that was founded in 1848. On July 12, 2007, the CBOT merged with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to form CME Group. CBOT and three other excha ...

(CBOT)

Treasury A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry; in a business context, corporate treasury. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be ...

futures contracts In finance, a futures contract (sometimes called futures) is a standardized legal contract to buy or sell something at a predetermined price for delivery at a specified time in the future, between parties not yet known to each other. The item tr ...

History

1980-Current

*1980- TMG was founded as Aardvark Financial Inc. *1981- Aardvark Financial became a clearing member of the

Chicago Mercantile Exchange The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) (often called "the Chicago Merc", or "the Merc") is an American derivatives marketplace based in Chicago and located at 20 S. Wacker Drive. The CME was founded in 1898 as the Chicago Butter and Egg Board ...

. Shortly thereafter, they began providing clearing services for their clients. *1984- Aardvark Financial changed its name to TransMarket Group. *2001- TMG sold their clearing business to

Fortis Fortis may refer to: Business * Fortis (Swiss watchmaker), a Swiss watch company * Fortis Films, an American film and television production company founded by actress and producer Sandra Bullock * Fortis Healthcare, a chain of hospitals in ...

(now

BNP Paribas Fortis BNP Paribas Fortis is an international bank based in Belgium and a subsidiary of French banking group BNP Paribas. The bank was created in May 2009 after BNP Paribas acquired 75% of the Belgian Fortis Bank from the Federal Participation and Inve ...

), which is now a major subsidiary of

BNP Paribas BNP Paribas (; sometimes referred to as BNPP or BNP) is a French multinational universal bank and financial services holding company headquartered in Paris. It was founded in 2000 from the merger of two of France's foremost financial instituti ...

. *2002- TMG acquired the futures broking division of Traderspace Limited (TSL) after which TMG divided their existing Australian business operations with their proprietary trading operation continuing under the TMG brand and the combined TMG and TSL Futures Broking Business becoming BrokerOne. TMG was for a time in the top quartile of brokerage houses as measured by volume on the Chicago futures exchanges. *2006- TMG created Aardvark Trading LLC to serve as TMG's algorithmic trading subsidiary. *2007-

MF Global MF Global Holdings Ltd., formerly known as Man Financial, was a major global financial derivatives broker, or commodities brokerage firm that went bankrupt in 2011. MF Global provided exchange-traded derivatives, such as futures and options ...

acquired BrokerOne, a leading Australian Futures Broker. Prior to this acquisition, the controlling shareholder was TransMarket Group. TransMarket Group began shifting its entire business to its "arcade" proprietary trading business. *2010-TMG's subsidiary Aardvark Trading and TMG’s domestic “arcade” operation agreed to merge operations. The merger integration between TMG domestic and Aardvark has largely been completed and resulted in the shift of TMG’s core business to team based model driven proprietary trading, though a small independent trading operation still remains. TMG’s previous international operations are being divested.

Leadership

Ray Cahnman, Founder, Chairman (US Interest Rates Trading) Ray Cahnman began his trading career at the Chicago Board of Trade in October 1975. He became the first independent trader to trade financial products at Shatkin Trading Company, which led to a partnership to arbitrage US Treasury cash/futures. In 1980, he established Aardvark Financial, a CBOT clearing firm. Aardvark Financial became a clearing member of the

in 1981. The firm was renamed TransMarket Group in 1984. He qualified as an independent floor trader on

London International Financial Futures Exchange The London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE, pronounced 'life') was a futures exchange based in London. In 2014, following a series of takeovers, LIFFE became part of Intercontinental Exchange, and was renamed ICE ...

and

Sydney Futures Exchange Australian Securities Exchange Ltd (ASX) is an Australian public company that operates Australia's primary securities exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange (sometimes referred to outside of Australia as, or confused within Australia as, ...

in 1989. From 1999-2002 Mr. Cahnman was a Director of the Chicago Board of Trade. Mr. Cahnman has trained many highly successful traders over his career. Ray continues to actively trade and manages the firm’s US interest rates strategy. Mr. Cahnman holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from

DePaul University DePaul University is a private university, private Catholic higher education, Catholic research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded by the Congregation of the Mission, Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from ...

and a Master of Business Administration degree from

Tulane University The Tulane University of Louisiana (commonly referred to as Tulane University) is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by a cohort of medical doctors, it b ...

References

{{reflist, 3 Financial services companies of the United States Companies based in Chicago