The Eric Bolling Diaries: A Trader is Born
Fast Money, CNBC's answer to ESPN's SportsCenter, returns next week after a brief hiatus.
After running for six months as a weekly program, Fast Money will join the network's primetime lineup, airing at 8pm Monday-Friday.
We are fans of the show...its an exception to the boredom that rules financial media. And Eric might be the best thing about it...according to our readers.
We named Eric our 2006 Man of the Year based on our reader's search activity.
Eric Bolling is a 20-year veteran of the trading pits and currently serves as a contributor on “Fast Money.” Bolling owns a trading company that specializes in trading both open outcry and electronic derivatives contracts. Bolling trades all derivatives, but specializes in the energy and metal sectors. He currently accounts for up to 5% of total volume in the natural gas futures floor.
Bolling is also a strategic advisor to the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Board of Directors and Chairman of many of the exchanges committees. He was named to Trader Monthly’s Top 100 in 2005 and 2006.
Bolling left a Duke University Fellowship after being drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates where he played several seasons.
He graduated from Rollins College, Winter Park, FL.
CNBC
This is the first installment in our series…
The Eric Bolling Diaries
Part One: A Trader Is Born
Congratulations on winning our 2006 Man of The Year award. You must have struck a nerve with the public, given how much interest our post on the Nymex Holdings (NMX-NYSE) IPO generated.
Thanks for having me. Your site is one of my favorite bookmarks.
Can we talk about your childhood? What sort of environment did you grow up in?
I grew up in a very humble, lower middle class Chicago household.
Cubs or White Sox?
I rode my bicycle to Wrigley for Cub games.... I wanted to be Ryne Sandberg when I grew up.
Ryno was certainly a class act. I lived a half a block from Wrigley Field in the summer of ‘89. What a year for the Cubs. I take it sports were a big part of your life back then?
All I wanted in life was to play pro baseball.
What about college? Did you play continue to play baseball?
You bet. I played for Rollins College, a small school in Florida- A powerhouse in sports that had a pretty decent academic agenda as well. I still remember my very first real trade. In my sophomore year, I took all the money I had in the world and bought Exxon call options.
That will not surprise my readers. What was your first job on Wall Street?
I worked summers in 1982 and 1983 as a runner on the CBOT for $150/ week. It allowed me to continue playing baseball in the summer.
Bird Food for Thought
Schumpeter might be dead...but creative destruction is immortal.
Financial journalists need to re-invent themselves...sooner rather than later. Dow Jones might be saving a bundle on its new version of the Wall Street Journal, but it ain’t gonna show up in anyone’s paycheck:
As The Wall Street Journal rolls out its new, thinner format, the staff at parent Dow Jones & Company fear less paper means less room for news - and less need for reporters, editors and production staff. Trader Daily
Save a tree...read a blog.
No positions in any securities mentioned. The content contained in this blog represents the opinions of 1440 Wall Street. This commentary in no way constitutes a solicitation of business or investment advice. It is intended solely for the entertainment of the reader, and the author.
Tough Guys
Robert Conrad was a famous tough guy.
He had boatloads of swagger...and was distinctly American. He was also entertaining...and reputedly still gets tons of fan-mail, mostly from devotees of The Wild Wild West.
That’s Hollywood.
Wall Street, too, attracts a lot of tough guys…
and a fair number of gunslingers.
And apparently you don’t need no stinkin’ badges to pitch stocks on television to Main Street…
LENNY DYKSTRA: Yes. I am a good investor. And I’m not afraid to say that. I’m a winning investor. Fox News Channel
At least you can’t accuse Lenny of style drift...
Billy (Beane) remembers sitting with Lenny in a Mets dugout watching the opposing pitcher warm up. Lenny says “So who is that big dumb ass out there on the hill?” And I say, “Lenny, you’re kidding me, right? That’s Steve Carlton. He’s maybe the greatest left-hander in the history of the game. Lenny says, “Oh, yeah I knew that!” He sits there for a minute for a minute and says, “So, what’s he got?” And I say, “Lenny, come on. Steve Carlton. He’s got heat and also maybe the nastiest slider ever.” And Lenny sits there for a while longer as if he’s taking that in. Finally he just says, “Shit, I’ll stick him” Moneyball
Indeed, the ex-baseball player made quite a splash in the financial media this year.
On the afternoon of Nov. 6, 2006, Lenny Dykstra tips the bellman at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City a double sawbuck for a bottle of water. He tips the doorman a double sawbuck for opening the door to his limo.
The 43-year-old retired baseball player tips the limo driver a C-note for taking him three blocks to Ram Capital Resources, where he’ll be trading some options. Fortune
Checkers vs. Chess
Would you take investment recommendations from this man?
How about one of his speech writers?
In the 1960s Mr. Gilder also served as a speech writer for several prominent officials and candidates, including Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney, and Richard Nixon. Discovery Institute
George Gilder is no dummy :
“In a world of dumb terminals and telephones, networks had to be smart. But in a world of smart terminals, networks have to be dumb.” George Gilder Forbes ASAP, December 7, 1992
He also has friends in high places:
“George Gilder is very stimulating even when I disagree with him, and most of the time I agree with him” -Bill Gates
But that did not prevent scores of investors getting buried by his prognostications when the bubble burst:
“The trouble with my business is that everyone came in at the peak,” Mr. Gilder said in a recent interview. “The typical Gilder subscriber lost all his money and that made it very hard for me to market the newsletter.” WSJ-sub req’d
George Gilder has apparently integrated valuation into his investing toolkit.
Probably too little, too late for some of his acolytes.
George is speaking January 4th in NYC. If you want to see him and are smart you can figure out where. We thought he was long gone...but he is back. It should be interesting to say the least. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Running money is a game.
How many moves ahead are you thinking?
