I kind of wanted to document this as, I think it will be kind of cool to look back on our humble beginnings.
From Jason:
Hey guys, I had my meeting with the guy from Peak6 yesterday, and a second meeting with a guy from a futures firm. The Peak6 guy was really cool, answered a lot of questions. He explained to me what exactly they do and there isn't anything there that is a natural fit for what my background in trading is. They only have a few traders and they are all financial engineers, not exactly traders. The firm itself is a market maker in certain ticker symbols, and then does risk arbitrage on anything they think they can exploit. So let's say the options pricing model would price an certain option at $2.50, if because of supply demand fluctuations or big shifts of volatility this option is priced differently, let's say $2.40 or $2.60, they will exploit this discrepancy through a combination of stock, options, futures, and specially structured off the exchange derivatives. They borrow money from Goldman Sachs in order to leverage up and multiply those pennies thousands of times. So obviously this is an advanced trading scheme and something I'm not currently qualified for. So I asked the natural questions like how do people become qualified, and what type of background did your current employees come from, etc. So beyond the obvious route of coming from the bigger name MBA schools or being a quant who was recruited by the firm, he didn't really have any answers for me. He knows somebody at Susquehanna and asked me to call him on Monday and he'll see if he can set up a meeting with them for next week since I'll be here. He said he thinks that they might have something a long the lines of what I'm experienced at doing. So we'll see. At a minimum he's a contact that works in the CBOE building which is where all the action takes place here. He said for me to check in with him every few months and for me to just keep networking. I inquired about a part-time unpaid internship to get my foot in the door and get exposed to everything that's going on and it sounded like that was a possibility that he could either hel p me with directly at his firm, or through some of the other firms in the building.
The second meeting was with a guy I had had some conversations with back in November. At that time I was looking in to learning how to play futures because from my recollection of taking the Series 3 exam it looked like it was basically options on steroids. But right as I got in contact with him is when things went south in a hurry when I was short some naked puts. So I didn't want to send money in to open a futures account because I though I needed it all to potentially buy stock if those puts got exercised. Long story short, I now have money freed up and I still have the interest to learn futures so I gave him a call. He works for MF Global which is a large futures/options broker. I will be opening up an account with him next week, and he too was very helpful in answering all the questions I had. On a personal level we just it off like the three of us have and with or without opening an account he seemed genuinely interested in helping me out should I chose to move to Chicago. He also works in the CBOE building and knows a lot of people at a lot of different firms. He said he would have no problem passing my resume around and introducing me to people. I ran the internship idea past him and he made it sound as if that shouldn't be a problem.
So in my opinion both meetings went about as well as I could have expected. This networking thing has been difficult for me. I'm not the most outgoing person, but it's starting to pay off. At a minimum now I know two guys who work in the building that I eventually want to be in. As long as they don't suddenly just stop returning my calls or emails I think at a minimum I'll be able to network further through them. I would say that if I was on the fence about coming to Chicago this should have pushed me over and left no doubt. My initial intent would have been to come for 6 months and network and see what I could come up with. That's still basically my plan should I chose to go. But anything can happen between now and January. I am interested in pursuing the SMB thing, or similar situation with another firm. I still have many calls and research to do on others so who knows what I'll come up with. So I would say that as of now I'm leaning towards heading out here sometime in the spring, but again, anything can happen between now and then and I'm completely open to anything. Mark and I have talked about possibly going to NYC together and I'm definitely interested in that. I'm spending the next few days literally walking the streets and getting familiar with the neighborhoods and looking at apartments. There is so much available here it's pretty sick. Rather than looking for a place to live in general, it's more like just pick an area you want to be in and there is plenty available within each neighborhood. I haven't seen specific prices yet other than what's posted online. So I'll get more of a feel for that the next few days. That's about it, maybe I'll have something more if indeed I get to meet with somebody from Susquehanna next week.
Mark Replied:
Sounds great Jason. I would say you were really successful in getting solid leads and networking. I think trading equities is not like most day to day jobs where their looking for political corporate choices like who fits best in our workplace, who's attractive, who's not threatening, who's going to do what I say and who's not cause me too much headache. Trading firm opportunities seem to be there as long as you can commit and are willing to do whatever it takes to make money. I think partners are strongly encouraged to see someone who's aggressively looking to get in as long as they can prove that they have the endurance and passion to make it... because of the bottom line nature of the business.
Keep up the networking! Personally I've found networking isn't hard at all when you're talking shop and possibly employment with others who share your passion.
I can see you in Chicago more than Orange County because the people there are more about simple things like community.There is more than ample housing in Chicago and now you know why I am so bullish about their real estate market. I check their listings daily and monitor existing properties and they are still haven't bottomed out yet... and the area is already relatively affordable when compared with over-priced sunbelt markets like LA.
I think I may have to shorten my 2-year plan. Yesterday I learned from my Supervisor that things are taking a serious turn for the worse with my employer and it looks like the cuts are heading my way.I am going to be looking to transition more aggressively and prepare for this eventuality. So... let's keep talking about doing the training program like SMB's in NYC. At the very least you get invaluable training/experience in NYC which is can be written-off...
Who knows what the future holds especially during hard economic times...
Dominic's Response:
Sounds like you had some successful meetings so far. I really think
that the three of us hooking up and sharing our passion has motivated
all of us to make that leap a lot more aggressively then we might have
if we would had never really joined forces. I just wanted to thank the
both of you for being such a great source of motivation and for all
your contribution thus far. I look forward to our progress and the
road ahead.
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