I came across this excerpt of one interview of 2005(http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48901&highlight=HARRY+BRUMFIELD):
"On one unemployment number day, I went into the release long a couple hundred T-notes. Right before the number came out the market was trading 12 bid at 13. The number came out moderately to seriously bearish.
A few small sales stops were triggered and several brokers were peppering another broker who was bidding at even (the whole number â i.e., 98.00).The even bid broker looked like he had size (a large order ), and I started howling âSold!â over and over. He was across the pit, but my voice was fairly loud and he recognized it. He immediately started yelling âBalance!â at me, which meant once he figured out how many contracts he had left to fill, he would tell me the exact number.
Yelling âSold!â like that means you want the entire order and youâre stuck with it all. But I didnât have a clue how many contracts he had, except I could tell by his eyes that it was large. The whole time he was trying to figure out his balance, the market was sheer pandemonium. Usually the broker will give you a ballpark figure of how many contracts he has left. In this case, though, he didnât give me an indication. By the time he gave me the number, around 90 seconds had passed and the market was 20 ticks lower. He had 2,200 contracts and, well, you can do the math. (Each tick in the Tnote was worth $31.25.).
On the flip side, one day I was bullish and the Notes rallied about three-quarters of a point. I was long 1,300 to 1,400 contracts the whole way. I cut my position down to 800 contracts and went out to lunch. At the time, I was up right around seven digits.
By the time I got back to the pit, the market had fallen to unchanged on the day and was dropping fast. I jumped into the pit and immediately doubledup my position. Eventually, I tripled up when the market dropped further. It wasnât until near the end of the day â after the market had dropped even more â I decided I was wrong. Let me tell you, it was u-g-l-y, you ainât got no alibi. By the time I had wiggled out of most of my position, the loss was double the size of my profit from earlier in the day.
I knew Iâd missed something, so later I scrolled through all the news for that day, and sure enough, there was a serious tax-cut comment around noon that I didnât hear."
This guy had huge balls as a pit trader, but this sounds more like gambling than trading to me. He was making and losing up to 8 figures per year and acknowledges he lost everything 3 times. Becoming the CEO of TT was a safer career path IMO...LOL. He was a visionary for that matter.
Anybody has stories about him? Thanks
"On one unemployment number day, I went into the release long a couple hundred T-notes. Right before the number came out the market was trading 12 bid at 13. The number came out moderately to seriously bearish.
A few small sales stops were triggered and several brokers were peppering another broker who was bidding at even (the whole number â i.e., 98.00).The even bid broker looked like he had size (a large order ), and I started howling âSold!â over and over. He was across the pit, but my voice was fairly loud and he recognized it. He immediately started yelling âBalance!â at me, which meant once he figured out how many contracts he had left to fill, he would tell me the exact number.
Yelling âSold!â like that means you want the entire order and youâre stuck with it all. But I didnât have a clue how many contracts he had, except I could tell by his eyes that it was large. The whole time he was trying to figure out his balance, the market was sheer pandemonium. Usually the broker will give you a ballpark figure of how many contracts he has left. In this case, though, he didnât give me an indication. By the time he gave me the number, around 90 seconds had passed and the market was 20 ticks lower. He had 2,200 contracts and, well, you can do the math. (Each tick in the Tnote was worth $31.25.).
On the flip side, one day I was bullish and the Notes rallied about three-quarters of a point. I was long 1,300 to 1,400 contracts the whole way. I cut my position down to 800 contracts and went out to lunch. At the time, I was up right around seven digits.
By the time I got back to the pit, the market had fallen to unchanged on the day and was dropping fast. I jumped into the pit and immediately doubledup my position. Eventually, I tripled up when the market dropped further. It wasnât until near the end of the day â after the market had dropped even more â I decided I was wrong. Let me tell you, it was u-g-l-y, you ainât got no alibi. By the time I had wiggled out of most of my position, the loss was double the size of my profit from earlier in the day.
I knew Iâd missed something, so later I scrolled through all the news for that day, and sure enough, there was a serious tax-cut comment around noon that I didnât hear."
This guy had huge balls as a pit trader, but this sounds more like gambling than trading to me. He was making and losing up to 8 figures per year and acknowledges he lost everything 3 times. Becoming the CEO of TT was a safer career path IMO...LOL. He was a visionary for that matter.
Anybody has stories about him? Thanks
"