About Robert J. Seifert

A little bit about my background. I have been involved in the securities industry since 1976. I started my career as a municipal and government bond salesman in Atlanta, Ga.  I moved forward and by1980 I started my own brokerage firm, Fixed Income Atlanta which also specialized in fixed income securities.

During this period, the securities industry was undergoing a major change as options on commodities could be traded for the first time. I became involved in this upheaval and in 1981 began to trade a commodity fund known as Oakmont Fund 1. The fund was highly successful and in 1982 I was rated by Managed Accounts Report as one of the top 10 small fund (under $10 million) mangers in the country.  I also placed second, beating out over 300 contestants in a yearlong trading challenge sponsored by the Wall Street Journal.

In the fall of 1983 I decided to move to Chicago to take advantage of the opportunity to trade options on commodities. I started in the Treasury bond options pit and quickly learned that the books that I had read about options didn’t work in the real world. They were all theory and this was “live” trading. I lost money and with my tail between my legs went back to Atlanta to manage the Oakmont Fund.

While in Atlanta I continued to study options trying to solve the puzzle of how they worked in a dynamic environment because the rocket scientists that wrote the text books didn’t have a clue. I have never been a pessimist and I was determined to take another shot at the options world. In February of 1985 I went back to Chicago but this time I went to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to trade the new Eurodollar option contract. It was the best financial decision that I have ever made.

I learned from my previous mistakes and this time I was successful right off the bat. In fact, I was so successful that in 1986 I closed Oakmont Fund 1 and with a partner I started a new company, Futrex Trading. Futrex eventually evolved into an international trading firm with offices in Chicago and London, traders at four exchanges and more than 100 employees.

During my time at Futrex, I became more involved with the management end of the exchange. I chaired numerous option committees and was Vice Chairman of the Eurodollar Option pit, which eventually became the largest option trading pit in the world. I was elected Chairman of the International Monetary Market (IMM), which was quite an honor as I oversaw the option floor at the CME. I also served as a political representative of the Exchange in Washington DC and helped design many of the contracts that are still used today.

After twelve years of grinding out 15 hour days, I decided to retire from Futrex in 1995. That didn’t last too long and in 1997 I formed a new floor trading company, Cat in the Hat Trading. The firm specialized in trading duration weighted options in the Eurodollar market. The firm had a small but elite group of traders and quickly became one of the largest floor market making firms in Chicago. By 2003 it was obvious that the world of pit trading was coming to an end and that the business was moving ‘upstairs’. I disbanded Cat in the Hat Trading and followed the crowd upstairs.

Upstairs was quite an adjustment. I formed a new trading firm, CWS Trading which was designed to use the electronic markets. The firm traded not only options but also commodities and stocks. In addition to trading, I began to do more teaching and writing. Eventually, most of my endeavors were involved with writing and teaching.

In addition to my role with Optionomics Group LLC, I have taught Finance 485 at UNLV. It is the highest level derivates course offered by the University. I also wrote the text book, ‘Profiting From Weekly Options’ for the course which deals with weekly options. It was published 2015 by John Wiley and Sons and is part of their financial series.

Available from Amazon HERE in Hardcover and Kindle.