The initials RCG belong to more than one company, which is the first problem a researcher hits. The firm this article covers is Rosenthal Collins Group LLC, the Chicago futures broker that traces itself to a seat at the Chicago Board of Trade. It stopped being independent seven years ago.
Anyone evaluating it today is really evaluating a division of Marex. That changes the counterparty, the balance sheet behind the account, and the set of regulators worth checking.
Which RCG this is
Rosenthal Collins Group LLC is registered as a futures commission merchant with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and is a member of the National Futures Association. Other businesses trade under similar names, including offshore CFD brands that have no connection to the Chicago firm. The way to separate them is the legal name and the NFA identification number, both of which appear in the NFA's BASIC database for free.
If the name on an account application is not Rosenthal Collins Group LLC or a named Marex entity, you are dealing with a different firm.
Marex took over the customer business in 2019
Marex Spectron announced on 20 December 2018 that it would acquire the customer business of RCG, and the transaction completed on 1 February 2019. Marex kept the RCG name, the Chicago headquarters and roughly 150 staff, including the firm's chief compliance officer. Ontario's securities regulator, in a decision describing the transfer of Canadian client accounts, put the number of client accounts at around 20,000, while the completion announcement cited 14,000 client accounts and balances.
The business now operates as the Rosenthal Collins Division of Marex, and Canadian filings identify the relevant entity as Marex North America LLC. In January 2019, shortly before completion, Marex sold parts of the RCG back office, including processing systems, treasury and compliance departments, to Bakkt, then a cryptocurrency venture under Intercontinental Exchange.
So the brand survives. The independent firm behind it does not.
Marex sits under several regulators
Marex Spectron described itself at the time of the acquisition as regulated in the United Kingdom by the Financial Conduct Authority, in the United States by the NFA and CFTC, in Hong Kong by the SFC and in Singapore by MAS. That coverage matters because the parent now guarantees the operational side of the business, including the technology and clearing reach that a standalone FCM of RCG's size could not fund on its own.
The acquisition was pitched to clients as access to a wider cleared exchange network, direct London Metal Exchange access where Marex held a leading category one membership, the NEON trading and risk platform, and a larger balance sheet. Commodity clients gained OTC hedging products through Marex Solutions, which a pure execution FCM could not have provided on its own.
That is the trade the acquisition offered. Less independence, more reach.
What a futures commission merchant does
An FCM is not a market maker quoting you a price. It executes orders and clears them, holds customer margin, and computes segregation every business day. Under CFTC Rules 1.20 and 30.7, customer funds must be held in accounts identified as customer segregated, separate from the firm's own money, with the requirement calculated daily and filed through the NFA's WinJammer system.
That structure is materially different from a retail CFD broker, where the dealer is usually your counterparty and sets the spread. At an FCM your trade goes to an exchange, your margin sits in segregation, and the clearing house becomes the counterparty once the trade is matched.
RCG held clearing memberships on the principal US futures exchanges and reached other markets through correspondent relationships. It also ran a network of more than 150 introducing broker and correspondent relationships, which is where a large share of its order flow originated.
There is no 1:2000 leverage here
Some reviews of RCG quote leverage as high as 1:2000. That figure belongs to the offshore CFD world and has no place in a description of a US futures broker. Exchange traded futures have margin set by the exchange, calculated through SPAN methodology and collected by the clearing house. Overnight margin on a CME currency future is a fraction of contract value, and day trading margin can be lower still, set by the exchange rather than by the broker's marketing department.
A broker can require more than the exchange minimum. It cannot meaningfully offer less.
Forex at a firm like this means listed currency futures and institutional cash foreign exchange, not a retail spread betting account. Anyone looking for that product needs a different type of broker entirely.
Platforms the desk actually runs
RCG built and sold its own front end, RCG Onyx Plus, a downloadable Windows application with a browser version alongside it, plus a FIX API for clients running their own systems and a hosting service for custom platforms. Beyond its own software it offered third party front ends, including CQG's suite and Cunningham Trading Systems' CTS T4, with Trading Technologies terminals available for professional flow.
Notice what is missing. MetaTrader does not appear, because MetaTrader is built around dealer quoted CFD pricing rather than exchange traded futures. A trader arriving from a forex background will find the tooling unfamiliar.
Who RCG is built to serve
The client list has always skewed professional. RCG served introducing brokers, commodity trading advisors, other FCMs, hedge funds, commercial hedgers and individual traders, and it added managed futures services in 2007. Grain elevators, energy producers and livestock feeders use an FCM of this type to hedge physical inventory, which is a different activity from speculating on a chart.
Retail traders can open accounts, and the firm's own marketing historically invited them. The service model, the platform fees and the minimums are calibrated to people who clear volume, not to someone opening a first account with a few hundred dollars.
Practical consequences follow from that. Onboarding takes longer than at an app based broker, the paperwork covers exchange risk disclosures and account classification, and support is oriented toward order routing and margin questions rather than beginner education. Clients who need hand holding tend to be better served at an introducing broker that clears through a firm like this one, because the IB supplies the service layer and the FCM supplies the plumbing.
Ask which of the two you are dealing with.
A century of Chicago futures history
The lineage starts in 1923 as Greene and Collins, a clearing member at the Chicago Board of Trade. Collins Commodities emerged from a 1977 merger, and in 1988 it combined with Rosenthal & Co., founded in 1970 by Leslie Rosenthal, who was closely involved in creating the GNMA contract that became the first financial futures instrument. The combined firm took the Rosenthal Collins name.
During the MF Global collapse in late 2011, CME Group named RCG among the clearing firms in good standing eligible to receive transferred customer segregated positions. Being on that list was a signal of standing at a moment when few firms wanted the risk. Rosenthal died in September 2017, and his counterpart Bob Collins died in 2019, months after the Marex sale completed.
What we could not verify
Specific account terms circulate widely on affiliate review sites: a 5,000 dollar minimum deposit, a 14 day demo, no Islamic account, leverage up to 1:2000. We could not confirm any of those against a primary page operated by the firm or by Marex, and several of them are inconsistent with how a US FCM operates. Treat them as unverified and ask the desk directly before relying on them.
Our searches did not identify published enforcement action brought specifically against Rosenthal Collins Group, and that absence is not a clean bill of health. Disciplinary records are searchable, and searching them takes two minutes.
Checking the record yourself
Start with NFA BASIC, which shows whether a firm is an approved FCM, what business it is registered for, and any NFA or CFTC disciplinary history, including customer arbitrations. Confirm the legal name, since a brand name is not a registration.
Next, check the exchange membership lists. CME Group publishes its clearing members, and a firm that claims to clear should appear there. For the parent, search the FCA register for Marex and read the permissions attached to the entity rather than the brand, then read the client agreement to see which company is actually your counterparty.
Futures and options are leveraged. Losses can exceed the money deposited, and margin calls can arrive faster than a retail trader expects. That is true at any FCM, including this one.