Alan van Griethuysen wanted to be an officer in the Netherlands Royal Army, following in the footsteps of his father, who was a full colonel in the military police.
However, when he took a one-year leave while in school and worked in hotels in England, it started a path that led him to the options exchange in Amsterdam. That first job as a price reporter began a tenure of 32 years at the exchange, which saw many changes during van Griethuysen’s time.
Brendan Bradley had a front row seat for the major exchange battles between open outcry trading and electronic trading after starting at the London International Financial Futures Exchange (LIFFE) in the 1980s and then moving to DTB in the mid-1990s. While there he saw the German Bund contract battle that shocked the global derivatives trading world and then later witnessed the competition between Eurex and the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) that he said ultimately led to the global leading exchange’s demise.
Bradley shared a historic overview of the development of markets in Europe as electronic trading developed for The Path to Electronic Trading from John Lothian News’ MarketsWiki Education video series.
Ryan McNally started his career as a runner on the CME trading floor, but he quickly moved off the floor to use the tools that helped make the markets more efficient and able to handle greater volumes, creating his path to electronic trading.
McNally started in 1982 as a runner for Lind-Waldock and he has been an electronic trading pioneer since the day he first saw the Lind-Waldock Order Express system.
Former CME Infrastructure Executive Talks to John Lothian News When Joe Panfil joined the Chicago Mercantile Exchange staff in 1997 as an information technology professional, the CME was still a member-owned, club-like organization focused on open outcry trading....
For Charles Farra, there were many steps on the path to electronic trading that saw him start as a runner for Cargill Investor Services in 1981 and work his way up in the organization. He would serve the firm in Chicago, London and Tokyo during a time when new products and big markets led to incredible growth in the futures industry.
NYSE executive Meaghan Dugan always worked in kitchens as a youth and had dreams of becoming a famous chef. She even earned a degree in culinary science. However, instead of donning a poofy cap for a career as a chef, she pursued a career in the markets at the Pacific Stock Exchange and wore a colorful jacket.
Tim Brennan did not know what he wanted to do after graduating from a small liberal arts college with a degree in psychology. As with many other traders from this era, his mom had a friend who could get him a job as a runner at the Chicago Board Options Exchange.
Alex Lamb pursued one opportunity after another in the burgeoning financial futures markets in Europe starting in the mid-1970s, then later with technology providers to markets around the world that migrated to electronic formats. After he hired Gary Kemp as a programmer to connect GMI and DTB and then develop a front-end screen that turned into Trading Technologies’ desktop offering, Kemp returned the favor and hired Lamb at TT.
Alex Lamb wanted to be a helicopter pilot in the U.K. Royal Airforce. He never had the chance, but he strategically landed opportunity after opportunity in the banking, trading and related technology businesses during his long and varied career.
Lamb even helped launch the firm Trading Technologies, outlining to then contractor Gary Kemp what he wanted for a new electronic trading screen that would allow brokers to enter orders for multiple accounts and be able to track them more efficiently. That was the genesis of the screen that became Trading Technologies’ desktop offering.
John Walls is an executive with ADM Investor Services, but he started in the industry like many others of his generation as a trading floor messenger or runner. As a runner on the MidAmerica Commodity Exchange trading floor working for Shatkin Trading, Walls took advantage of nearly every opportunity he was presented with to learn all the different aspects of the markets and futures industry.
In Part Two of Robin Trott – The Path to Electronic Trading, Trott talked about how block trade and call-around markets developed in Europe. Platforms were rushing to write to all of the individual European markets. There were a large number of them back then.
Robin Trott started out as an undergrad studying philosophy and politics, but it was the peak of the dotcom bust and he realized that wasn’t very practical. So he got a Master’s degree and got on the technology and operations graduate scheme at JP Morgan.
Veteran Trader and Serial Entrepreneur Shares tastytrade and Thinkorswim Origin Stories Tom Sosnoff is a serial entrepreneur whose endeavors are transforming how people trade and understand the markets. Expanding on his success as an open outcry options trader on the...
Former CME CIO Krause Recalls the History of CME Globex From the Beginning Jim Krause came to the futures industry from a job in temperature control and HVAC at a company called MCC Powers. He followed Don Serpico, his supervisor at MCC Powers, who had been hired by...
First Read $54,406/$300,000 (18.1%) ++++ Fireside Chat Launches FIA Asia with Regulatory Discussion By Sarah Rudolph - John Lothian News Regulatory issues were the first order of business at the first panel of FIA Asia Tuesday Morning (Monday night for those of us in...
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Observations & Insight EDITOR'S NOTE: We apologize for the delay in getting the newsletter out today. Our email provider was having technical problems. ++++ Fireside Chat Launches FIA Asia with Regulatory Discussion By Sarah Rudolph - John Lothian News Regulatory...
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