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Breaking Through: Linda Raschke, Part 1

Traders Magazine Online News, December 20, 2017

Kara Grygotis

Welcome back to Breaking Through: How Three Women Took on the World of Trading, our blog series interviewing female trading pioneers. We first spoke with Margie Teller, who navigated her way through the CME trading pits to become a floor trading Hall of Famer. If you missed it, see Breaking Through: Margie Teller, Part 1 and Breaking Through: Margie Teller, Part 2.

Our second interview was with Brynne Kelly, who took a far different route through the trading industry, finding success on the merchant side of energy trading. Read her story in Breaking Through: Brynne Kelly, Part 1 and Breaking Through: Kelly, Part 2.

Our final piece in this series is a conversation with Linda Raschke, who moved from the trading floor to the trading screen by chance, yet went on to have an extremely successful career. Read on to learn about Linda’s career path, how she bounces back from losses and more.

 

Kara: You started out as a market maker in equity options, but have become better known as a futures trader. Talk to me about how you made that shift and why you ended up in futures.

Linda: When I started off trading equity options on the floor—this was 1981-82—a lot of things were out of line. There was tons of opportunity, but still, it was not like the liquidity that we have nowadays. So usually we would all leave the floor for breakfast, go upstairs, and then look at other exchanges and other markets to trade. I started trading the S&P futures on the very first day they were listed, only because we were sitting upstairs and looking for other ways to get into trouble. I really liked to trade that product. And what happens after the crash in 1987? The liquidity dried up for a good period in equity options. So I just naturally transitioned more from the S&Ps to the bonds to the currencies—pretty much all the financial futures. And then in 1991, I decided to become a CTA and just concentrate on the futures.

Kara Grygotis and Linda Raschke

Kara: You’ve had a pretty impressive career. I think it would be great to hear how you got started in this space. Can you talk to us a little bit about the beginning? How you ended up in trading?

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