Clearing Relationship Archive
Linnco Futures Group and LFG, L.L.C. formed the opening chapter in a clearing-firm lineage that continued through Refco, Man Financial, and MF Global.
Founding period through 2011
Institutional context
This record traces the futures commission merchants that supplied the account-carrying, clearing, and operational infrastructure behind Argo Futures Group's customer-facing brokerage. According to founder Dan Miller's account, the sequence began with Linnco Futures Group, later identified in public records as LFG, L.L.C., and continued through Refco, Man Financial, and MF Global.
The corporate chronology is checked against CFTC, NFA, federal court, SEC, and archived website records. The specific Argo relationships are presented as founder oral history except where a surviving Argo record independently documents the connection. In Miller's account, each firm in this sequence served as Argo's carrying and guarantor FCM during its respective period.
Institutional lineage
Four period identities mark the progression of the institutional clearing relationship described in the Argo archive. Each logo is reproduced from an authenticated period source without redrawing or reinterpretation.
Founder oral history identifies Linnco/LFG as Argo's first clearing relationship. CFTC records identify LFG, L.L.C. as formerly known as Linnco Futures Group, Inc. and as an FCM registered since at least December 1989.
Public records document Refco's acquisition of substantial LFG assets in spring 2000. The surviving Refco publications below show the scale and breadth of the resulting global clearing environment.
In November 2005, Man Financial purchased client accounts and other assets from regulated Refco subsidiaries. The transaction was an asset acquisition rather than a simple corporate renaming.
Man Group separated the brokerage business in July 2007. It then operated independently as MF Global, the final identity in this particular clearing-firm sequence.
Founding-period clearing firm
The LFG chapter places Argo's founding-period clearing relationship within the industry's early move from telephone and floor execution toward browser-based order entry, real-time monitoring, and electronic risk management.
Founder Dan Miller recalls that Argo began its clearing relationship with Linnco Futures Group in 1997. Contemporary CFTC records use the legal identity LFG, L.L.C. and expressly note the earlier Linnco Futures Group name. A 2001 CFTC order states that LFG was an Illinois limited liability company headquartered in Chicago and had been registered as a futures commission merchant since at least December 7, 1989.
LFG's period technology record is unusually well preserved. A Microsoft case study hosted in the USPTO record states that LFG formed its FuturesOnline division in December 1997 and built a browser-based futures system in nine months. The system supported direct order entry, real-time order and position monitoring, and risk management while connecting to LFG's existing trade-processing infrastructure.
The case study reported 2,500 users and more than $100 million in futures contracts cleared daily. Those figures are retained here as the publication's own period claims, not as independently audited Argo statistics.
Corporate transition
Federal court records place Refco's offer and LFG's acceptance in March 2000 and state that Refco subsequently assumed control of much of LFG's assets. The CFTC record dates the sale of substantially all LFG assets to approximately April 28, 2000 and the discontinuation of its customer business to approximately June 1, 2000. The archived transitional logo visibly preserves the connection between the two firms.
Operating structure
Argo's guaranteed introducing broker status described a regulated division of responsibilities between the independent introducing broker and one guarantor futures commission merchant. It was not a guarantee of investment performance.
Argo Futures Group
Argo maintained its own identity and customer relationships, introduced accounts, accepted customer orders, and supplied the brokerage service and market support associated with those relationships. As an introducing broker, it did not hold customer funds in its own name.
Guarantor FCM
The futures commission merchant carried customer accounts and funds, provided exchange and execution access, cleared transactions, and supported statements, records, and other back-office functions. The exact allocation of services depended on the governing agreements and period operating systems.
The regulatory guarantee
NFA guidance explains that an introducing broker could satisfy its minimum financial and financial-reporting requirements through a written guarantee agreement with the registered FCM carrying its customers' accounts. NFA Rule 2-23 made the guarantor FCM jointly and severally subject to NFA discipline for the guaranteed IB's rule violations while the agreement was in force. The structure added institutional supervision and responsibility; it did not insure a customer against trading losses, guarantee market results, or remove the introducing broker's own duties of honest and compliant conduct.
The Refco chapter
The two complete Refco publications preserved by Argo document the institutional infrastructure that followed the LFG transition and preceded the Man Financial and MF Global eras.
Why the record matters
Refco's 2005 SEC filing described it as the largest independent FCM in the United States based on approximately $4 billion in customer segregated funds at February 28, 2005, and as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's largest customer by 2004 contract volume. The brochures show the breadth of its period infrastructure across listed derivatives, foreign exchange, fixed income, equities, research, asset management, and electronic trading platforms.
Primary document I
The selected cover preserves Refco's original visual identity. Its designed lower panel is shown as an exact display crop for legibility, while the complete uncropped cover remains in the archival PDF. The ten-page sequence follows the timestamp order of the supplied scans and includes the firm's own history through 2003.
Authenticated source document
Ten exact page renders, with the original cover shown as a legibility crop and preserved in full in the archival PDF, followed by the corporate profile, client-service themes, and historical timeline printed in the publication.
Primary document II
A separate twelve-page publication presents the firm's exchange-traded derivatives, research, fixed-income, equities, foreign-exchange, electronic-platform, and asset-management capabilities.
Authenticated source document
Twelve exact page renders retained in their original order, with the original PDF available as a separate archival download.
Source record
The interpretation separates four kinds of evidence: Argo's supplied physical scans, founder oral history, official public records, and exact visual assets recovered from archived period websites.
Continue the record
Continue through the Man Financial and MF Global clearing-firm context and the 2011 institutional disruption.
Place the full Linnco/LFG-to-MF Global sequence within Argo's broader company chronology.
Return to the permanent collection of authenticated primary-source records.
Review the documented regulatory framework under which Argo operated as an introducing broker.