Donnie Roberts – Open Outcry Traders History Project

Donnie Roberts came to Chicago after graduating from graduate school with a love of futures and options trading. He chose Chicago over New York and London. He came to the visitor center of the Chicago Board of Trade one day and developed goosebumps while experiencing the opening of the markets. The same thing happened at the CME and Cboe. After hanging around the Cboe, he met Mike Juneman of Timber Hill. Junemen introduced to him David Downey, who hired Roberts as part of their trading development program. His first job was as a trade checker. He arrived in Chicago with a marine corp bag and a cardboard box. He succeeded in the program and passed the Cboe test to become a trader. Later, he joined Interactive Brokers when things started moving electronic. He worked on all the exchanges first to understand each one’s process for trading. His selling of electronic trading screens strained his relationship with some of his former Cboe traders and friends to the point he avoided taking the escalator between 3 PM and 3:30 PM. He knew he wanted to be a part of the future of the industry and has changed and evolved with the times. Today, he is the president and CEO of a startup exchange, the Small Exchange.

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