The Treasure HunterQ: What would you do to avoid that?
A:Getoutofmypositionsandthengetoutofthepit.
Q: Where would you go?
A: I would just go into the lunchroom or go downstairs and look
at where other markets were going. Maybe go over and look at
some other market on the floor that I wasn’t a member of, but see
what’s going on there. Basically, I would just get out of that area
where I was going to get tempted to lose money.
Q: How long would you take a break for?
A: As long as it took. However, you’ve got to be careful. You can’t
be working for a company and play pinball all day down in the
pizza parlor because the markets are slow. So I would go in there
and see what was going on, if I saw that the quagmire was starting
again, I would either stay in the pit and just shut up, or see if there
were any new pretty clerks on the floor. I would have some other
way of amusing myself besides trading commodities or bidding and
offering on these options. It was only when the markets go crazy
that you find big wide spreads, you find gaps, and you find things
that are mispriced. So I kind of wait for that, cherry pick, if you
will.
Q: Did meeting with a risk manager every few days, help your
trading by having accountability because you had to report to some-
one your results?
A: No, really that’s an internal process. Most of the risk managers,
the people I’ve dealt with, they’re usually failed traders or someone
who doesn’t really have the first clue about what’s really going