$262K Solo Commission Record

A story about Ken Rideout outperforming an entire trading desk in a single day of commissions.

"I was on a trading desk where there was a group of credit derivative brokers trading generic credit derivatives. I was trading credit derivative correlation products - super sophisticated, high-end bespoke one-off trades.

The credit derivative desk had about 12 guys, and that was the product everyone wanted to be in at the time. We had a super busy day, and the kid who ran the CDS (credit default swap) desk says to me, 'Dude, we had a huge day - we made $250,000 in commissions between 10-15 guys.'

I said 'Hold on, let me see,' and I started looking at my numbers. I said, 'Oh dude, I was a one-man show - I did $262,000 in total commissions.' And I was keeping either 50 or 60% of that in one day."