IMC Financial Markets

Last updated
IMC Trading
IMC Trading
Company type Private
Industry Financial services
Founded1989;35 years ago (1989)
Founders
  • Rob Defares
  • René Schelvis
Headquarters Amsterdam, Chicago, Sydney and Mumbai
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Rob Defares (CEO and chairman) [1] :34
Products High-frequency trading, Market making
Increase2.svg€1.562 billion [1] :5 (2022)
Increase2.svg€506 million [1] :5 (2022)
Total equity Increase2.svg€1.141 billion [1] :5 (2022)
Number of employees
1,300 [1] :19 (2022)
Website imc.com

IMC Financial Markets, sometimes referred to as IMC Trading, is a proprietary trading firm and market maker for various financial instruments listed on exchanges throughout the world. [2] Founded in 1989 [3] as International Market makers Combination, the company employs over 1100 people and has offices in Amsterdam, Chicago, Sydney, Hong Kong, Mumbai and other places.

Contents

History

IMC was founded in 1989 [4] by Rob Defares [1] :34 [5] and René Schelvis, [5] [6] two traders working on the floor of the Amsterdam Equity Options Exchange.

In 2008, Wiet Pot joined as co-CEO alongside Defares. [7] Pot left the board in September 2017, leaving Defares as sole CEO. [8]

Trading

IMC is a technology-driven trading firm active in over 100 trading venues throughout the world and offering liquidity to over 200,000 securities. IMC makes markets in the major exchange-traded instruments – equities, bonds, commodities, and currencies – on 100 exchanges worldwide and is a significant liquidity provider on the NYSE Arca, NASDAQ, CBOE, BATS, and CME exchanges.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Day trading</span> Buying and selling financial instruments within the same trading day

Day trading is a form of speculation in securities in which a trader buys and sells a financial instrument within the same trading day, so that all positions are closed before the market closes for the trading day to avoid unmanageable risks and negative price gaps between one day's close and the next day's price at the open. Traders who trade in this capacity are generally classified as speculators. Day trading contrasts with the long-term trades underlying buy-and-hold and value investing strategies. Day trading may require fast trade execution, sometimes as fast as milli-seconds in scalping, therefore direct-access day trading software is often needed.

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 bid–ask spread, or turn. The benefit to the firm is that it makes money from doing so; the benefit to the market is that this helps limit price variation (volatility) by setting a limited trading price range for the assets being traded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bid–ask spread</span> Financial markets concept

The bid–ask spread is the difference between the prices quoted for an immediate sale (ask) and an immediate purchase (bid) for stocks, futures contracts, options, or currency pairs in some auction scenario. The size of the bid–ask spread in a security is one measure of the liquidity of the market and of the size of the transaction cost. If the spread is 0 then it is a frictionless asset.

In finance, a contract for difference (CFD) is a legally binding agreement that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between two parties, typically described as "buyer" and "seller", stipulating that the buyer will pay to the seller the difference between the current value of an asset and its value at contract time. If the closing trade price is higher than the opening price, then the seller will pay the buyer the difference, and that will be the buyer's profit. The opposite is also true. That is, if the current asset price is lower at the exit price than the value at the contract's opening, then the seller, rather than the buyer, will benefit from the difference.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Budapest Stock Exchange</span> Stock exchange in Budapest, Hungary

Budapest Stock Exchange(BSE) (Hungarian: Budapesti Értéktőzsde (BÉT)) is the 2nd largest stock exchange in Central and Eastern Europe by market capitalization and liquidity. It is located at 55 Krisztina Boulevard, Budapest, Hungary, in the Buda Centre of the Hungarian National Bank Previously, from 1864, during the Austro-Hungarian Empire it was located in the Budapest Stock Exchange Palace building, until a large trading floor was necessary. The exchange is controlled by listed issuers, by Hungarian private investors and by the central bank. The BSE is member of the World Federation of Exchanges and the Federation of European Securities Exchanges.

Algorithmic trading is a method of executing orders using automated pre-programmed trading instructions accounting for variables such as time, price, and volume. This type of trading attempts to leverage the speed and computational resources of computers relative to human traders. In the twenty-first century, algorithmic trading has been gaining traction with both retail and institutional traders. A study in 2019 showed that around 92% of trading in the Forex market was performed by trading algorithms rather than humans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open outcry</span> Communication method on the trading floors of stock exchanges

Open outcry is a method of communication between professionals on a stock exchange or futures exchange, typically on a trading floor. It involves shouting and the use of hand signals to transfer information primarily about buy and sell orders. The part of the trading floor where this takes place is called a pit.

Market microstructure is a branch of finance concerned with the details of how exchange occurs in markets. While the theory of market microstructure applies to the exchange of real or financial assets, more evidence is available on the microstructure of financial markets due to the availability of transactions data from them. The major thrust of market microstructure research examines the ways in which the working processes of a market affect determinants of transaction costs, prices, quotes, volume, and trading behavior. In the twenty-first century, innovations have allowed an expansion into the study of the impact of market microstructure on the incidence of market abuse, such as insider trading, market manipulation and broker-client conflict.

A multilateral trading facility (MTF) is a European Union regulatory term for a self-regulated financial trading venue. These are alternatives to the traditional stock exchanges where a market is made in securities, typically using electronic systems. The concept was introduced within the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), a European Directive designed to harmonise retail investors protection and allow investment firms to provide services throughout the EU.

High-frequency trading (HFT) is a type of algorithmic trading in finance characterized by high speeds, high turnover rates, and high order-to-trade ratios that leverages high-frequency financial data and electronic trading tools. While there is no single definition of HFT, among its key attributes are highly sophisticated algorithms, co-location, and very short-term investment horizons in trading securities. HFT uses proprietary trading strategies carried out by computers to move in and out of positions in seconds or fractions of a second.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knight Capital Group</span> Former American financial services firm

The Knight Capital Group was an American global financial services firm engaging in market making, electronic execution, and institutional sales and trading. With its high-frequency trading algorithms Knight was the largest trader in U.S. equities, with a market share of 17.3% on NYSE and 16.9% on NASDAQ. The company agreed to be acquired by Getco LLC in December 2012 after an August 2012 trading error lost $460 million. The merger was completed in July 2013, forming KCG Holdings.

BOX Options Exchange, LLC (BOX) is an automated exchange operated by the TMX Group and owned by TMX and a consortium of broker-dealers. As an equity options market, it provides electronic order matching services to stockbrokers and traders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2010 flash crash</span> U.S. stock market crash lasting 36 minutes in May 6, 2010

The May 6, 2010, flash crash, also known as the crash of 2:45 or simply the flash crash, was a United States trillion-dollar flash crash which started at 2:32 p.m. EDT and lasted for approximately 36 minutes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtu Financial</span> Financial services company

Virtu Financial is an American company that provides financial services, trading products and market making services. Virtu provides product suite including offerings in execution, liquidity sourcing, analytics, broker-neutral, multi-dealer platforms in workflow technology and two-sided quotations and trades in equities, commodities, currencies, options, fixed income, and other securities on over 230 exchanges, markets, and dark pools. Virtu uses proprietary technology to trade large volumes of securities. The company went public on the Nasdaq in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interactive Brokers</span> American financial services firm

Interactive Brokers LLC (IB) is an American multinational brokerage firm. It operates the largest electronic trading platform in the United States by number of daily average revenue trades. The company brokers stocks, options, futures, EFPs, futures options, forex, bonds, funds, and some cryptocurrencies.

Optiver Holding B.V. is a proprietary trading firm and market maker for various exchange-listed financial instruments. Its name derives from the Dutch optieverhandelaar, or "option trader". The company is privately owned. Optiver trades listed derivatives, cash equities, exchange-traded funds, bonds, and foreign exchange.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">XTX Markets</span> British algorithmic trading company

XTX Markets is an algorithmic trading company. It was founded in January 2015 by Alexander Gerko, who is currently co-CEO alongside Hans Buehler. The company employs 190 people globally and uses algorithms to trade the difference in market prices across a variety of venues.

Flow Traders is a proprietary trading firm. A market maker, it provides liquidity in the securities market by using high frequency and quantitative trading strategies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Citadel Securities</span> American market making firm

Citadel Securities LLC is an American market making firm headquartered in Miami. It is one of the largest market makers in the world, and is active in more than 50 countries. It is the largest designated market maker on the New York Stock Exchange.

Global Trading Systems, which uses the trade name GTS, is an American proprietary trading and market making firm headquartered in New York. The firm accounts for 3 to 5 percent of the daily turnover of US equities and has handled over 250 IPO listings since 2013.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 IMC Trading (March 2023). "IMC Annual Report 2022". IMC. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
  2. Reuters
  3. "IMC - MarketsWiki, A Commonwealth of Market Knowledge".
  4. "About us". IMC. Archived from the original on 2 August 2021. Retrieved 5 May 2023. IMC was founded in 1989 by two traders working on the floor of the Amsterdam Equity Options Exchange.
  5. 1 2 Mosselman, Maarten (9 June 2010). "IMC founder Schelvis buys a new car". Amsterdamtrader. Archived from the original on 17 August 2019. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
  6. "Homepage". Surmount Ventures. 2020. Archived from the original on 4 February 2023. Retrieved 5 May 2023. Rene Schelvis: ... Co-Founder of IMC
  7. "Wiet Pot Joins IMC As Co-CEO - Global Custodian". Global Custodian. 31 March 2008. Archived from the original on 5 May 2023. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
  8. "Robert Defares". Forbes. 3 June 2018. Archived from the original on 5 May 2023. Retrieved 5 May 2023. Defares is now the sole CEO of IMC after former Co-CEO Wiet H.M. Pot. left the board in September 2017.