Options trading once belonged to the floor traders packed into Chicago's pits. optionsXpress, founded in that city in 2000, put the same contracts in front of ordinary investors through a web browser. It gave them pricing and strategy tools that had been rare outside professional desks. The company went public in January 2005. Online brokers were climbing back from the dot-com crash, and a new wave of active traders wanted cheaper, faster ways to trade.

Built Around Options

The founders bet that retail investors would trade options if someone made it easy and cheap. Most brokers treated options as an add-on to stock trading. optionsXpress built its whole platform around them, with option chains, calculators and lessons for self-directed traders. Low flat commissions drew active customers, and the firm earned well on each account. It stayed lean and profitable, which set it apart from many brokers of its era.

Folded Into Schwab

optionsXpress priced its IPO at $16.50 a share in January 2005 and traded on Nasdaq as OXPS. It stayed profitable in the years that followed. It added futures trading and bought other brokerage businesses. In 2011 Charles Schwab acquired optionsXpress in a stock deal worth about $1 billion. Its options tools and its active-trader customers became part of one of the largest brokers in the United States.

Cover: Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare, Claude Monet. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for an express train (speed).