Dan Gramza sat for an interview with John Lothian News for the MarketsWiki Education The Path to Electronic Trading video series. Gramza tells the story of how he got started in trading with stock options in 1974. In 1980, he moved to the Chicago Board Options Exchange and traded delta neutral strategies. He realized he had not eliminated risks, but changed them. He moved to the Chicago Board of Trade on a rice membership to trade price. Then he started working for exchanges, including the SGX, teaching how to trade. He explains the difference between being a floor trader and an upstairs trader.
Rama Pillai of SGX engaged with Gramza to make up a new course to teach at SGX. Gramza even met with the board of directors as part of his SGX experience. He also met with banks, brokers and exchange personnel. Electronic trading was going to change the world and he looked at the broader scope of change.
He created courses on technical analysis, market profile, what he called trading in the eye of the storm, options and modified Japanese candlesticks.
SGX gave Gramza a room on the trading floor and traders would come into his office to look at the markets with the traders. That helped cement some of the ideas he was teaching to the traders.
Some 85% of the traders who made the transition from open outcry to electronic trading were still in the market after the transition.
BRIAN HYNDMAN’S PATH TO ELECTRONIC TRADING BEGAN EARLY
Brian Hyndman wanted to be a stockbroker growing up and that is what he became, starting out by working for Waterhouse Securities. But his career would be driven by the innovations and new technologies adopted by the markets and he would play a central part. Hyndman...
