Trading & Options · Profile from Trading and Options Research Companion
Citadel Securities
The Miami-based market maker that Ken Griffin built out of his hedge fund's options market-making desk in 2002 and turned into the largest liquidity provider in US stocks and retail order flow — the wholesaler that fills a large share of American retail trades bought from brokers such as Robinhood, the largest NYSE designated market maker after it bought IMC's book (announced Oct 2020), a top options market maker and, since 2014, a rival to the banks in interest-rate swaps, Treasuries and credit. Its story turns on scale and data as the edge in liquidity provision, and payment for order flow as a distribution channel: by paying brokers for orders that are, on average, less informed than institutional flow, it buys a stream it can price better than anyone with less data. That model made it the villain of the GameStop week in January 2021 — Griffin testified on 18 Feb 2021 that "absolutely not" had anyone at Citadel pressured Robinhood — and it was the first business Sequoia and Paradigm bought into (~$1.15bn, Jan 2022, at a reported ~$22bn valuation). Reported net trading revenue reached a record ~$12.2bn in 2025 (+25% vs 2024) and ~$7.3bn in Q2 2026 alone (both reported; the firm publishes no audited accounts).
At a glance
- Founded
- 2002, as the market-making arm of Citadel (the hedge fund, now Citadel LLC); founder Kenneth C. Griffin (Wikipedia, reported); began in listed equity options (from memory, verify the 2002 start desk)
- Headquarters
- Miami, Florida (moved from Chicago in 2022, reported); offices in New York, Chicago, London, Paris (European rates hub, 2024), Dublin, Hong Kong, Sydney (2016), Tokyo (2022) and others (Wikipedia, reported; verify current list)
- Ownership / structure
- Private; majority-owned by Ken Griffin and separate from Citadel LLC the hedge fund; minority stake sold to Sequoia Capital and Paradigm (~$1.15bn, Jan 2022) (Wikipedia, citing press); broker-dealer Citadel Securities LLC registered with the SEC and a FINRA member
- Leadership (2026)
- Ken Griffin, founder and owner; Peng Zhao, CEO since 2017 (joined 2006); Jim Esposito, president, hired from Goldman Sachs in Sep 2024 (Wikipedia, reported)
- Business lines
- US retail equity wholesaling (internalisation of broker-routed orders); institutional equity market making and ETF trading; listed options market making; NYSE designated market maker; interest-rate swaps, US Treasuries, corporate bonds and FX; equity and fixed-income market making in Europe and Asia; outside stakes (EDX Markets; Ripple and Kraken, Nov 2025, reported)
- Scale (dated, reported)
- Revenue ~$4bn in H1 2020; a record ~$7.5bn in 2022; ~$9.7bn revenue and ~$4.2bn net income in 2024 (press via Wikipedia, reported); 2025 net trading revenue ~$12.2bn (+25% vs 2024) (Reuters, Apr 2026, from documents and anonymous sources — firm did not confirm); Q2 2026 a record ~$7.3bn trading revenue (Bloomberg via Hedgeweek, reported). Share of US equity trades: "over 20%" (end-2022) and about one in four (2026) (Wikipedia, citing press); ~one-third of retail stock orders by 2015 (WSJ, reported). ~1,800 employees (2025, reported)
- Regulators
- SEC and FINRA (US broker-dealer); NYSE and the options exchanges' rulebooks; CFTC/NFA for swaps and futures; the FCA, AMF/ACPR (Paris), SFC (Hong Kong) and JFSA (Tokyo) for overseas units (verify entity-by-entity); Chinese regulators (2020 settlement, reported)
- Signature moves (incl. failures)
- Founding as Citadel's options market maker (2002); retail wholesaling and PFOF (2000s–); rates, swaps and Treasuries (2014–); the NYSE DMM books (2016, IMC 2020); the SEC retail-pricing settlement (Jan 2017, $22.6m); the GameStop week and congressional testimony (Jan–Feb 2021); Sequoia and Paradigm's $1.15bn (Jan 2022); EDX Markets and the return to crypto (2022–25); record revenue (2025–26)
9 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2002
Founding as Citadel Options Market Maker
Founding / new strategy (a hedge fund starts a market-making business)
2007
Retail Wholesaling and PFOF
Market-structure bet (payment for order flow and internalisation of retail orders)
2014
Rates Swaps and Treasuries
New market (fixed income: interest-rate swaps, US Treasuries, later corporate bonds and non-dollar swaps)
2016
NYSE Designated Market Maker Books
Acquisition (buying NYSE designated market maker — DMM — businesses)
2017
SEC Retail Pricing Settlement
Regulatory, enforcement or legal action (settled; failure)
2021
GameStop Week and Congressional Testimony
Market shock response / regulatory, political and legal event
2022
Sequoia and Paradigm Investment
Capital raise (first outside minority equity)
2023
EDX Markets and the Return to Crypto
New market / venue investment (crypto exchange backed by traditional market makers and brokers), later direct stakes in crypto firms
2025
Record Revenue and Multi Asset Scale
Scale / outcome of strategy (record results from multi-asset market making in a high-volume regime)