Size Enables Trading Career

Kevin shares how he got his first job on the Chicago trading floor due to his physical size.

"I didn't know anything about trading. I was a small rural town farm kid who played sports all my life. I went for this interview and the guy just looks at me and says 'Damn you're a big tall guy.' I was probably about 6'4", 350 at the time.

They asked 'You like to fight?' I thought 'What kind of interview question is that?' I said 'Yeah sure, I go out every weekend, get a rumble or two at the bars.' They said 'Yeah, you're great, you're hired.'

I said 'Well what am I doing? I don't even know what I'm doing.' They said 'Oh everybody will see you on the floor, it'll give us a little edge and advantage.' They'd hire basketball guys, ex-football guys because there'd be fights breaking out on the floor. They started me at the very bottom as a phone clerk, then I moved to trading Swiss francs, D-marks, and foreign currencies over at the Merc, then flipped back over to trading treasuries."