This Father's Day weekend, it's time to honor my dad and to share with you some of the wonderful lessons he has imparted to me.
My father spent most of his career as an options trader on the floor of the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) before anyone knew what a derivative was and when Wall Street was a simpler place. Dad did not end up a trader because he wanted to get rich. His best friend from college was working on the New York Stock Exchange and encouraged him to ditch his job in retail and swap it for one with better hours. At the time, exchanges were open from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., which meant that my father was home earlier than most other dads in the neighborhood and would spend time with us after school.
When I was in elementary school and the teacher asked us what our fathers did for a living, I said that my dad was a floor trader, which the teacher interpreted as a linoleum salesman. I tried to explain that he worked in a big room where men were shouting and laughing with lots of paper on the floor and that they were trading stocks and options, even though I didn't really know what it all meant.
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