I made myself a cup of tea and walked out onto the floor. These guys were the B team of finance, the direct descendants of the Curb Exchange, the group of bootleg traders who ran their books on the streets outside the New York Exchange from the 1890s until 1921. The cloud of smoke that hung over the room came from cigarettes, not pipes the furniture was covered in Naugahyde, not leather and the members were mostly Irish, Italians, and Jews, not WASPs, or at least WASPs who had gone to the right schools. Walking into the members’ lounge of the American Stock Exchange was not like walking into the Harvard or Yale Club. I went upstairs to the members’ lounge to await the opening. Having crepe soles was the least of my worries. I couldn’t find a seat so I decided to change my shoes later. Men in blue smocks were sitting on benches all around me changing their shoes, putting on crepe soles and shoving their leather ones into the cubbyholes that lined the walls. I put on my smock, pinned on my badge, and checked to make sure that I had my pen. Since it was my first day, I didn’t have a blue smock, so I had to introduce myself to Joey Dee, the attendant, and give him my badge number, 945. Members were lined up at the counter, exchanging their sport jackets for their blue smocks, the official garb of the American Stock Exchange. I turned left down the stairs to the coatroom. The guard looked at my badge, saw that it said Martin Schwartz & Co., 945, nodded a good morning, and let me in. I stopped outside the entrance of the building marked 86, took a deep breath, pulled out my badge, and for the first time walked through the door that said Members Only. New York’s financial world was preparing to start another day. It was Monday morning, August 13, 1979, and Trinity Place was bustling with men in business suits heading to work. This was going to be my first trade from the floor of the American Stock Exchange and I was scared to death that I was going to screw it up, that I wasn’t going to be able to hack it as a trader. Each option would give me the right to buy one hundred shares of Mesa stock at a strike price of $65 per share any time up until the third Friday in October, the expiration date of the call option. If Mesa Petroleum hit 62⁵/8, I was going to try and buy ten October 65 call options at $300 per option. I kept saying it over and over in my mind like a mantra. Three Bid for Ten, Three Bid for Ten, Three Bid for Ten.
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