Surfing for ProfitsQ: When you were in Beverly Hills and were working for this
firm that had high-net-worth individuals, were you doing block
trading for them or were you a sales trader?
A: No, actually I came in there just as a broker. I had 7 and 63
license, and I basically came with a couple of clients that traded big
blocks. We would do all kinds of research together and find stocks.
We’d try to find out good ideas on a daily basis. I started learning
how to trade options. There was another guy that traded options.
He had expertise in that area, so just being around different traders
at that time, I picked up a lot of different things.
Q: What year was that when you were brokering this kind of
stuff? Was it in the late ’90s?
A: Yeah, it was in the late ’90s. I think I got my license in around
’95. I was younger then, so I kind of hopped around to try and
figure out just what it was I really wanted to do, and being with
the investment bank I knew that I really didn’t want to do that.
Also I liked trading, but I knew I didn’t want to be scalping a
couple thousand shares for a quarter or half a point. So I went
and worked for some firms and then eventually a friend of mine
wanted me to come down to his office to look at something called
foreign exchange. That was seven years ago, and so I kind of just
fell into that. I looked at the markets and with my technical analysis
background, my eyes and my mind just matched with the market.
Q: At that time foreign exchange trading was just starting to
become available to the retail clients. The Internet made it possible
for these retail brokers to go out and offer FX to the public.
A: Yes. It’s funny you say that because back then the first place I
traded at they didn’t even take trades over the Internet. They had
a little window in the office where we placed our order ticket and
then the lady would stamp it. It would be attached to an account