How Digital Trading Pioneer Thomas Peterffy Revolutionized the Stock Market

| Sep 30, 2021 | Michael Benigno

In 1977, Hungarian-born Thomas Peterffy purchased a seat on the American Stock Exchange. A decade later, he developed a fully automated market-making system for stocks, options, and futures, an innovation that forever changed the trading floor and fast-tracked his career success.

Today an American billionaire, Peterffy is the founder and chairman of Interactive Brokers, the second-largest publicly traded electronic broker. In a recent Gabelli School Virtual Centennial Speaker Series webinar sponsored by the Gabelli Center for Global Security Analysis, the CFA Society New York, and the Museum of American Finance, he shared his perspectives on modern-day governance and technology, and their impact on global business, with CNBC Senior Markets Correspondent Bob Pisani.

Changing regulations present formidable challenges for any firm, Peterffy said, but having the right software and programming can keep large international firms on top of market trends and poised to introduce new products, like cryptocurrency. “Being as automated as we are, we continuously have to program the regulations into our system,” he explained. “That’s what you have to cope with if you want to be a global firm that can accept clients from anywhere in the world.”