Have you ever noticed that industry analyst firms only cover technology that appears to be growing? Even though slow death is a viable trend, you can’t really put out a report that disparages several of your clients’ entire business models and expect to stay in business yourself. I would argue locally installed trading applications falls into this category.

Once again this year MarketsWiki hosted their annual Summer Intern Series in Chicago and New York, events designed to provide students, interns, and those new to the financial industry with key points of career wisdom from a series of seasoned financial industry experts.

There is a revolution underway. Technology has already vastly changed the nature of trading and the financial markets. For retail futures traders the doors are wide open for improvements. What's new, what's changing and what still needs to change for the retail futures trader? We sat down with Chuck Mackie, senior advisor at Maven Wave Partners to discuss the landscape. Mackie has over 30 years experience in the financial services industry with expertise in electronic trading and the development of new markets. He was a principal in SaaS firm Fundamental Analytics for 2 years, Director of OTC Clearing at ICE for 6 years, and Head of Sales for the CME at trading software firm Trading Technologies. Other past employers include Paris Markets, the CME, and JPMorgan Chase.

Recently, I was invited to speak at a trader's meet-up in Los Angeles. It was a fun event and I met a lot of passionate and intelligent active traders. However, out of all the attendees, only about 10% had ever traded futures.

As much press as FinTech has received for new initiatives and investment in the financial sector it would be hard not to notice the consolidation that has occurred in the derivatives space over the past decade. To build and navigate a successful futures firm it is important to understand the current environment, how we got here, and then project where the opportunities are in the industry.