Global Trading Systems, which uses the trade name GTS, is an American

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 ...

and market making firm headquartered in New York. The firm accounts for 3 to 5 percent of the daily turnover of US

equities Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporation in proportion t ...

and has handled over 250 IPO listings since 2013. GTS has additional offices 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 ...

, Florida,

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, Paris, Warsaw, and

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

Background

In 2006, GTS was co-founded by Ari Rubenstein, David Lieberman and Amit Livnat. The trio had previously worked at the Pax Clearing Corporation in the cash equities business. During their time there, they noticed that computers were able to trade much faster and more efficiently than humans. When 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 ...

became a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of share capital, stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) co ...

via an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

, it was clear to them that technology would drive business and gave them the idea to make a business based on

electronic trading Electronic trading, sometimes called e-trading, is the buying and selling of stocks, bonds, foreign currencies, financial derivatives, cryptocurrencies, and other financial instruments online. This is typically done using electronic trading plat ...

. GTS began as an equity trading operation but later expanded into other products. In 2009, it started trading

futures Futures may mean: Finance *Futures contract, a tradable financial derivatives contract *Futures exchange, a financial market where futures contracts are traded *''Modern Trader'', formerly Futures, an American finance magazine Music * ''Futures' ...

and in 2013 started trading currencies. In August 2014, GTS's subsidiary Strike Technologies sold StrikeNet, its microwave technology unit, to

TMX Group TMX Group Limited is a Canadian financial services company that operates equities, fixed income, derivatives, and energy markets exchanges. The company provides services encompassing listings, trading, clearing, settling and depository faciliti ...

. In 2016, GTS acquired the Designated Market Maker (DMM) Trading Business of

Barclays Barclays PLC (, occasionally ) is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services ...

at the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is the List of stock exchanges, largest stock excha ...

(NYSE) floor. As a result, GTS became the DMM for over 1,200 listed securities at the NYSE floor which included

Twitter, Inc Twitter, Inc. was an American social media company based in San Francisco, California, which operated and was named for its flagship social media network prior to its rebrand as X. In addition to Twitter, the company previously operated the V ...

Berkshire Hathaway Berkshire Hathaway Inc. () is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Originally a textile manufacturer, the company transitioned into a conglomerate starting in 1965 under the management of c ...

and

Alibaba Group Alibaba Group Holding Limited, branded as Alibaba (), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in E-commerce in China, e-commerce, retail, Internet, and technology. Founded on 28 June 1999 in Hangzho ...

. With Barclay's exit, there were no more banks acting as market makers at the NYSE floor and the market makers were now automated trading firms. Apart from GTS, its competitors on the NYSE floor were

Virtu Financial Virtu Financial, Inc. is an American high-frequency trading company. The company went public on the Nasdaq in 2015. Organization Based in New York City, Virtu was founded by Vincent Viola, a former chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange ...

and

Citadel Securities Citadel Securities LLC is an American market making firm headquartered in Miami, Florida. It provides liquidity and trade execution to retail and institutional clients. The firm also trades futures, equities, credit, options, currencies, a ...

. While the firms employed human traders, the business was mostly performed by computers. In November 2017, GTS teamed up with

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 ...

to trade US Treasuries. This would involve BNP using GTS' technology to improve pricing for its clients and boost its market share of US Treasury trading. One year later, BNP's market share of US Treasury secondary trading on electronic platforms grew from 1.5 to 4 percent. The two then extended their partnership to trade US equities. In November 2018, GTS announced it had acquired the automated ETF and retail stock trading divisions of

Cantor Fitzgerald Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. is an American financial services firm that was founded in 1945. It specializes in institutional equity, fixed-income sales and trading, and serving the middle market with investment banking services, prime brokerage, an ...

. The deal was done so GTS would be able to start directly serving retail customers. In the same month, GTS and Mischler Financial Group entered a

strategic alliance A strategic alliance is an agreement between two or more Legal party, parties to pursue a set of agreed upon objectives needed while remaining independent organizations. The alliance is a cooperation or collaboration which aims for a synergy wh ...

to enhance their

capital market A capital market is a financial market in which long-term debt (over a year) or equity-backed securities are bought and sold, in contrast to a money market where short-term debt is bought and sold. Capital markets channel the wealth of savers ...

s business. In December 2018, GTS acquired an ownership stake in Wavelength Capital Management, a quantitative investment firm. In June 2019, after the acquisition of the two

divisions, GTS stated it would expand into US

corporate bond A corporate bond is a bond issued by a corporation in order to raise financing for a variety of reasons such as to ongoing operations, mergers & acquisitions, or to expand business. It is a longer-term debt instrument indicating that a corpo ...

trading. In December 2019, GTS acquired the equity options trading division of Barclays. In October 2023, GTS acquired the FX trading unit of HC Tech. GTS saw growth in foreign exchange market making due to global volatility caused by events such as the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

and

Gaza war The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...

References

External links

* {{authority control 2006 establishments in New York City Companies based in New York City Financial derivative trading companies Financial services companies based in New York City Financial services companies established in 2006 Privately held companies based in New York City