The homework from Ken Gaus’ Introduction to Transformative Trading seminar was for each of us in the session to think about why we got into trading and be prepared to discuss the reasons at the following day’s session.As for me, I got into trading because it looked exciting.

When I was working my way through college selling copy machines, I met a guy named Al Donnato.  Al was a municipal bond trader.  I used to sit at his desk and watch him with a phone in each ear, buying and selling.  I was 22 years old and I had seen plenty of people at work, but Al’s buying and selling looked so much more exciting than anything else I had seen, I knew I had to be part of it.

Shortly after meeting Al, I called on the local Shearson stockbrokerage office.  The manager listened to my presentation about copy machines and said that he did not need a copy machine, asked if I would like to take an aptitude test to see if I had the potential to be a successful stockbroker.  I took the test and got one of the highest scores they had ever seen.

Shearson hired me as a trainee stockbroker and I began my training.  I was on my way to buying and selling, or so I thought.

It turned out that being a stockbroker in 1973 meant selling nascent REIT’s to old people.  I looked around at the Shearson office filled with stockbrokers calling people and telling them to buy this new offering or that REIT.  This was not the exciting buying and selling that Al Donnato was doing.

However, there was one broker in the office who did have a phone in each ear.  He was buying and selling, just like Al, but he was buying and selling commodities.  I thought that this looked more like the exciting career I had envisioned.  As luck would have it, the lone commodity broker in the office retired and I became the commodity specialist for the office, with a phone in each ear.

As my business and my understanding of commodity trading grew, it became obvious to me that the real action in commodity trading was on the trading floor, not in the Shearson Indianapolis office.  I remember spending a week relieving the desk manager at our order desk on the Chicago Board of Trade Floor when the manager, my friend, took a short vacation. 

I was in heaven.  I was at the seat of the action.  I was for one week a “Temporary Floor Clerk”.  I even got a badge, which I kept and took home to show everyone.  When I showed the badge proving that I was a Temporary Floor Clerk to my wife, she laughed.  Somehow, Temporary Floor Clerk did not send the same impressive message to her that it had sent to me.

After my week on the floor, I knew that I wanted, even needed, to be a trader on the floor.  I knew the odds were against success, but I embraced the challenge to see if I was good enough to make the grade as a successful trader.

Lastly, I wanted to be a trader because I perceived that being a successful trader would bring me the Big Life that I had wanted my entire life.

I remember reciting the poem (printed below), “I do not choose to be a common man.  It is my right to be uncommon, if I can”.  I never wanted to be like everyone else.  I had big dreams and trading looked like the way to get the Big Life, I craved.

After thinking about it, I got into trading for the excitement, the challenge and to live the Big Life, I wanted.  Trading has given me all of those things although it has not been an easy progression. I cannot imagine what my life would have been had I not chosen the uncommon life of a trader.

Wishing you success in your trading,  Jeff

My Creed by Dean Alfange

I do not choose to be a common man

It is my right to be uncommon… If I can.

I seek opportunity… Not security.

I do not wish to be a kept citizen,

Humbled and dulled by having the state to dream and build, to

Fail and succeed.

I refuse to barter incentive for a dole.

I prefer the challenges of life to the

Guaranteed existence;

the thrill of Fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia.

I will not trade freedom for beneficence

Nor my dignity for a hand out.

I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat.

It is my heritage to stand erect, proud, and unafraid;

 to think and act for myself; enjoy the benefits of my creations; and

to face the world boldly and say, “This I have done with my own hand,

I am a man. I am an American.

Copyright 2008 by Jeff Quinto

All rights reserved