01About us

Independent, permanent, ours.

Cardinal is a proprietary trading firm. The capital is ours, and so are the decisions. There are no investors to answer to and no quarter to make, which leaves us free to think in decades.

2024Founded
6Exchanges
100%Proprietary capital
1Office, Washington, DC

What Cardinal is

And what it isn't.

Most confusion about the firm comes from assuming it's one of the things on the right.

Cardinal is

  • A proprietary trading firm. The capital is ours.
  • A research house that trades. The trading is how we find out whether we were right.
  • Small by design. One office, one culture, one log.
  • Permanent. Built to outlast everyone who started it.

Cardinal is not

  • A hedge fund. No outside capital, ever.
  • A signal service, a newsletter, or an education business.
  • A high-frequency shop. We win on understanding, not latency.
  • A prop shop. We don't sell evaluations, seats, or funding.

How we got here

Compounding since day one.

Every year the firm has added something it didn't have before and kept everything it already had.

2024

One person, one market

US equity index futures, the deepest market in the world, and a decision log that has never been edited.

2025

First system live

The first system goes live on the firm's own capital and pays for the second. It is still running.

2026

First hires, second exchange

The first researchers and engineers join. Rates futures are added.

One ring a year