Prime Trading

In a Chicago crowded with equity and options shops, Prime Trading made its name in the commodity world: Treasuries, energies, grains, softs, and metals. That orientation, more than any single market, is what sets it apart from its neighbors.

Trading since the mid-1980s on its own capital, the firm has outlasted the shift from open outcry to screens and holds memberships across CME, NYMEX, CBOT, COMEX, and ICE. Its reach runs wider than its size suggests, onto Brazil's B3, Norway's exchange, and Eurex, plus US cash equities. The headcount stays lean for a firm of its age, a sign of a capital- and technology-driven model rather than a floor full of discretionary traders.