Kevin “Lex” Luthringshausen

For the past 30 plus years, I have been an integral part of the stock, options, and clearing business. I began my trading career as a market maker on the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE).

After five years as an independent market maker, my partners and I created a proprietary trading company called Botta Trading. I became the CEO and Managing Partner of Botta and oversaw its growth into one of the largest Designated Primary Market Making firms in the United States. Botta had offices at all of the major exchanges in the U.S. and expanded overseas to Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and London.

Botta was the largest customer of Pax Clearing and partnered to produce a market maker clearing firm. Botta developed a trading platform called Brisk for its traders and Pax’s customers. Brisk was an industry standard at the time. In 2005, Pax/Botta and its technology were purchased by Merrill Lynch.

After Botta, I continued my path in the options industry. I created an off-floor trading firm called Zydeco Trading. Zydeco also created technology for exclusive use within the trading firm. We created automated stock and options signals for use in initiating and exiting trades. As the professional trading world changed, I reset my focus on the retail, online trading space.

In 2017, my business partner and I created a retail trading platform called TradeHawk. We connected our platform to Tradier Brokerage in 2017. TradeHawk enjoyed success as a private technology company, and in 2020, Tradier Inc. purchased TradeHawk.

Today, I am the SVP of Business Development for Tradier, Inc., and also oversee the continued development and enhancements of the TradeHawk platform. I host a regular, live YouTube broadcast called OptionsBrewTV. This show spotlights educators, mentors, and industry leaders in an effort to offer exciting content to the Tradier trading community.