Proprietary trading (also known as prop trading) occurs when a trader trades stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, their derivatives, or other financial instruments with the firm's own money (instead of using depositors' money) to make a profit for itself. Proprietary trading can create potential conflicts of interest such as insider trading and front running. Proprietary traders may use a variety of strategies such as index arbitrage, statistical arbitrage, merger arbitrage, fundamental analysis, volatility arbitrage, or global macro trading, much like a hedge fund.

Conflicts of interest

There are a number of ways in which proprietary trading can create conflicts of interest between a bank's interests and those of its customers. One example of an alleged conflict of interest can be found in charges brought by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission against Citigroup in 2007. Another source of conflicts of interest is potential front running, in which case the buy-side clients suffer from significantly higher trading costs. Front running per se is illegal, but there are circumstances under which a broker that operates a proprietary trading desk gains advantage over its clients based on inferences from order book data.

Famous traders

Trader Nick Leeson took down Barings Bank with unauthorized proprietary positions. UBS trader Kweku Adoboli lost $2.3 billion of the bank's money and was convicted for his actions. Armin S, a German private trader, sued BNP Paribas for 152m EUR because they sold to him structured products for 108 EUR each which were worth 54 00 EUR.

Notable proprietary trading firms