Life, on the Line by Grant Achatz (book club reads .txt) 📕

“Yeah, I guess my next boyfriend should be from Chicago,” and then laugh. I looked up and it was a woman who was also in my philosophy of law class. She was beautiful and somehow different. She wore clothes that were a few years older than her age, but she carried it with sex appeal. When she spoke in class her statements were reasoned and clear. I saw that as an opportunity to introduce myself. “Hey, I’m from Chicago. My name is Nick.”

“Dagmara,” she said. “Nice to meet you.” She gathered up her books and walked out the door. That was that. Total indifference.

I began to notice her around campus, and we would strike up short conversations. But she would always end them and head off. I left my sweater on the back of a chair, and she returned it to me. We knew each other, but didn’t say much.

Late on a Friday night my band was playing at the campus pub, the last band of the night. Halfway through our late set I noticed Dagmara, wearing sweats and a T-shirt, being dragged in by her roommate Jen, seemingly against her will. They sat at a table in the front. Jen was staring at me the entire time in a way that made me uncomfortable, self-conscious, and really happy. As soon as I began to flirt with her, she pointed at Dagmara and mouthed something to me. I tried to find them after the show but they had left.

And then, finally, Jen found me out one night and told me, “You know, my roommate really likes you a ton. Here, come with me. She’s home studying. I’ll bring her a present.” I thought it was a bad idea—and a terrific one. I followed Jen to their apartment and walked in to find Dagmara reading. “Hi.” We were inseparable after that.

When I graduated, I couldn’t imagine working in an office every day for the rest of my life. Nor could I imagine myself as a professor or academic in philosophy. I’d gotten into law school at the University of Pennsylvania, but decided to defer a year. All I wanted to do was start some business that afforded me the opportunity to work my own hours and live or die by my own decisions. My dad and I pursued an opportunity to buy a landmark Chicago diner when its ailing Greek owner had to sell, but my dad didn’t want his now “educated” son to do that sort of work. The deal fell through. When it came time the following fall to head to law school, I instead bought a ticket for Japan and visited Dagmara, where she’d taken a job. We came back to the U.S. together. I never thought of law school again.

Dagmara got a job with Citibank, and I started a small business selling posters to college students at the beginning of each new semester, and to doctors’ offices the rest of the time. I didn’t make much money, but it wasn’t bad. It was on par with what I would have made starting out in a real job. Still, it wasn’t a career.

Growing up in Chicago, it’s hard not to hear stories of traders. New York has investment bankers, Chicago has floor traders, a much less prestigious and much more blue-collar job. I knew a few guys from my high school who skipped college altogether, hit the pits with a small stake, and were now developing condos while I was pondering law school. I also knew more than a few traders who were once rich and were now broke. I interviewed with companies like Société Générale and Goldman Sachs, but in the end the job offers and training programs seemed too much like jobs and not enough like a life. I would have little or no control over what I learned, where I worked, or how much money I made. So I took a job on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange making minimum wage and told myself that I would find a way to become an independent trader.

Six months of clerking on the floor was an eye-opener.The Chicago trading floors are loud, Darwinian places where your educational awards mean nothing and the last trading day could be, literally, your last trading day. Just as I was about to quit and figure out how to head to law school I met a young trader who was smart, analytical, and just leaving a large trading firm to start as an independent options trader. Even though he said he didn’t need an employee I begged to work for him, going so far as to offer to pay him to work. He had the knowledge I needed.

I spent seven months working side by side with Frank Serrino as he made markets in Canadian Dollar options. Then I put up my savings from the poster business and he put up the other half of the money and I started trading I-lots in Swiss Franc options. My goal was to make about $150 to $200 per day, then grow my account slowly, start trading 2-lots, and so on.

Trading for a living gets a lot of attention in the press due to day traders, rogue options traders who can take down banks, and evil hedge-fund thieves. But floor trading as an independent is more akin to being a professional golfer, except that every time you make a bad shot you pay money to the golfer who made a good shot. It’s a zero-sum game, meaning that no wealth is created or destroyed; it simply shifts risk and money between players. It serves a useful purpose to the economy in aggregate, but as an individual trader it is akin to being psychoanalyzed 24/7. If you are good, 49 percent of your decisions will be wrong. Even if you are great, something just short of a majority will be losers. It’s hard not to second-guess your decisions constantly, even though doing so produces