The 100-Pip Traderthe time and then I just forgot about it. In fact I completely forgot
about it until much later on.
Q: That’s very interesting, because not everyone who is success-
ful at trading actually majored in anything remotely related to it in
college.
A: Yes, exactly, and I never actually took any economics classes
in college at all. The big scary class at BYU [Brigham Young Uni-
versity] when I was an undergraduate was Economics 101 and it
seemed so daunting from all the horror stories I heard about it.
So, although I was interested in business—and, by that time, I was
once again interested in the markets—I was just too fearful at the
time to really take the plunge and study economics in college. I
missed the opportunity to get a really good foundation, which I
think would have assisted me later on in my trading career.
Q: So then you went on to study law?
A: That is correct. As soon as I graduated from BYU with a degree
in Italian, my wife and I moved to San Francisco where I started
law school.
Q: Was that because of parental pressure?
A: Mostly, yes. I think it’s unfair to blame the decision on my
parents, but in my mind, I really did enroll in law school because I
believed, from my upbringing, that it was the “safe” route. That’s
exactly the reason why I went. I think I was strongly encouraged by
my parents to pursue a traditional occupation that would allow or
enable me to support my family. And any pressure I felt from my
parents was positive—they were excited for me to go to law school
and told me that they believed I would do very well. They were
probably more excited than I was about law school. It was never
forced on me, and I sort of followed that path because I had come