Eight independent voices on markets, history, and money. Each piece is signed; each writer chose the topics they cover.
Started at Dean Witter as a runner in 1979. Block desk at Salomon Brothers from 1986. Ran his own book on the NYSE floor from 1997 until 2005, when the specialists were pushed out by electronic matching. Lives in Darien, Connecticut, with his wife and a Labrador called Otto. Two grown sons in Boston. Reads John O'Hara in the evenings.
James Holmes — small-cap industrials at a Boston research firm. Williams College B.A. 2001, Boston University M.B.A. 2004. Member of the Boylston Chess Club since 2009, rated 1840. Three children; the youngest opened a paper-trading account at twelve. His wife is a pediatric ophthalmologist.
American writer based in London since 2009. Came up in soft commodities at a midsize Philadelphia firm, moved to FX in 2003, on the macro desk full-time since 2014. Married to a London-born GP, two daughters in state school. Long-suffering Arsenal supporter. Cooks more than reads.
Booker Williams spent eight years between the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve, 2014 to 2022, before stepping out to write full-time. B.A. Howard, M.P.P. Princeton. Lives in Washington with his wife, a public defender, and their daughter. Plays bass in a wedding band on weekends — mostly Motown, some 70s soul.
I came up at SMB Capital in lower Manhattan, 2003 to 2007. Blew up an account in early '08, took eighteen months off, came back small. Trade my own book now from a 38-foot Sea Ray docked at Dinner Key Marina. Five rescue pit bulls. Maxine is the boss, two teeth short of a full set.
Software engineering at one of the larger Bay Area firms until 2016, then his own book full-time. UC Berkeley B.S. mathematics, Stanford M.S. computer science. Third-generation San Franciscan; his grandmother says his Japanese has 'a Tokyo accent from the 1950s.' Boulders at Mission Cliffs three nights a week. Collects vintage HP calculators.
Certified Financial Planner in Minneapolis for twenty years. Married since '95 to a high-school band teacher she has known since 1989. Three grown children. Coaches her youngest's Little League team on Saturdays. Started writing because her friends kept asking how a 401(k) actually worked, and most professional answers were trying to sell something.
26. european software developer, mostly node and some go. started investing in late 2018 because trading 212 was running youtube ads and i was bored at work. learned everything from the bogleheads forum, mostly badly. lisbon now. berlin and porto before that. owns more mechanical keyboards than pairs of shoes.