Trading is older than the stock market, and options are older than the theory that prices them. The instruments in this knowledge base were mostly invented before anyone could value them; the theory arrived later, and the technology arrived last. The milestones in brief:
What the study covers
- 1Overview: instruments first, theory second, technology last
- 2Amsterdam, 1602–1700: shares, forwards and options before the stock market
- 3Dojima, 1697–1939: the first organised futures market
- 4Chicago, 1848–1970: grain, the pits and the clearing house
- 5Bucket shops, Livermore and the first crowd of retail speculators (1880s–1920s)
- 6Bachelier, 1900: the random walk and the first option-pricing theory
- 7, the New Deal and the rules that still frame trading (1929–1940)
- 8Thorp and the first quants (1960s)
- 9–1973: currency futures, the Cboe and Black–Scholes
- 10Index futures, portfolio insurance and 1987
- 11The quants and LTCM (1980s–1998)
- 12Electronic trading and decimalisation (1990s–2005)
- 13High-frequency trading and its crises (2005–2015)
- 14The retail revolution: discount brokers to zero commissions (1975–2021)
- 15Volatility as an asset, and its first crash (1993–2018)
- 16DTE, record volumes and the 24-hour market (2022–2026)
- 17Europe and Asia
- 18What has stayed constant
- 19Timeline
- 20How to read historical trading claims
- 21Key numbers
- 22Landmark firms and cases
- 23Pitfalls
- 24How an expert thinks about it
- 25Glossary
Companies in this study
- Cboe Global Markets
- CME Group
- Options Clearing Corporation
- Jesse Livermore
- Princeton Newport Partners
- Turtle Traders
- Hunt Brothers Silver
- Renaissance Technologies
- Long-Term Capital Management
- Interactive Brokers
- Knight Capital
- Virtu Financial
- Citadel Securities
- Charles Schwab and thinkorswim
- Robinhood
- Melvin Capital
- Eurex Deutsche Boerse
- Euronext and LIFFE
- Japan Exchange Group
- National Stock Exchange of India
- Korea Exchange
- BitMEX