Word: trader
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Perot, the son of an East Texas cotton and cattle trader, apparently genuinely believes that philosophy. In 1962 he quit a safe job as an IBM computer salesman to work for Blue Cross-Blue Shield and to start his own computer software company, Electronic Data Systems. By 1969 it had grown enough to make Perot a billionaire at the age of 39. That left little danger; so Perot, who might be described as a mixture of Billy Graham and Don Quixote, has sallied forth to rescue Wall Street from the dragons plaguing it. In 1970 he heeded pleas from John...
Such a view contrasts sharply with that of the militant Gaddafi, whose tastes are spartan and anti-imperialist. The son of a nomadic horse and camel trader, he lived in a tent throughout his childhood. With the help of a tutor, he studied at night by the light of an oil lamp, and he remains fiercely proud that he skipped several grades after entering school. He traces his political consciousness to the late 1950s. "Everything was happening," he says. "Arab nationalism was exploding. The Suez Canal had been nationalized by the Egyptians in 1956; Algeria was fighting for its independence...
...dollars needed to buy a future on them. More important, commodity prices are being rocketed upward by a huge increase in worldwide demand for U.S. farm products. "Our markets are coming out of the age of surpluses," which always had a potential to depress prices, says CBT Pit Trader Richard H. Mayer...
Commodity prices frequently fluctuate in reaction to arcane events. For example, one reason for the leap in soybeans is that schools of Peruvian anchovies for a while mysteriously disappeared from the Pacific. As hardly anyone but a commodity trader would guess, that removed from the market anchovy fish meal-the only product that competes effectively against soybean meal for animal-feed protein. Last winter, a Manhattan investor bought some orange-juice futures on the calculation that "all I need to make a profit is two hours of frost in Florida." It did not happen, and he lost...
...every four amateur commodity players lose money in the long run. Yet the rewards for the winners-and the sheer excitement of the action-seem to hold a special fascination for younger speculators. "We have a new crew of investors, people not scarred by the Depression," says CBT Trader Mayer. 'They take chances because they want to live...