The Great Adapterjust because maybe the software wasn’t lightening fast like some
of these other shops, where the guys were just in and out, in and
out, moving thousands and millions of shares per day.
Q: They would hold positions for an hour or two, sometimes
even overnight?
A: Yes. Guys were holding stocks for weeks. At the time, that was
the thing to do and they made thousands of dollars [laughter]. So
it was a horrible place to start, but it all worked out.
Q: How long did you stay there?
A: [Sigh.] Let’s see, I stayed there probably a good two years.
Q: Really? As tough as it was, what happened in the first, let’s
say, two months? Were you down substantially?
A: Training class was me and probably 10 others. This was pretty
common. There were probably more than 100 people in the firm,
but it was a revolving door. New blood rolled through weekly. For
every one guy who was hitting it hard, there were 10 or 15 leaving.
Everybody from my class was gone in a couple of months. My
training class had a big thick manual and a lot of stuff I probably
shouldn’t have even been taught because it clutters the thinking.
And when my trainer got done, he said you’re going to trade next
to me for the first couple of weeks. So I would put on 100 to 200
shares, do nothing crazy, and after about a week I was like, “This
is nuts.” These guys around me were throwing around big size,
trading tech stocks, making all this money. I was just prodding
around, not really making any money. So my trainer had to go to
Austin for a week for training [Laughter]. And after he left, there I
was putting on a thousand of everything, and it was a horrible two