bonus to a physically handicapped trader, or something like that,to force the trader out of the firm. I didn’t know all the details, but I knewthat the case was Herb’s, that it was producing huge amounts of filingwork, and that meant that it was producing huge fees. I stopped drawingmy portrait of the managing partner, and asked: “Which document specifi-cally do you want me to find?”
He stopped talking and stared me down again for what seemed likeforever. I thought at any moment he would pounce on me, his little DannyDeVito frame scrambling across the desk to rip out my throat or some-thing. I took a step back.
The phone was still sitting on his desk, and I could barely hear a voicecalling out to him, wondering where Herb went. I think Herb was partlyglad I had interrupted him so that he could get back to billing three peopleat once.
“It’s a letter,” he answered, as he started walking around his desk topick up his briefcase. As he described the letter, he was already in the pro-cess of doing something else entirely. When he finished letting me knowwhat I was supposed to go look for, he looked up at me and said, “Take itdown to the 31st floor, personally, and tell Mr. Anderson that I want him tocall me and let me know that you delivered it.”
So this was the punishment: I was messenger boy for a morning. Thatwas perfectly fine. I could stand that, especially since there were moun-tains of Anderson files that my team and I were going to have to work onfor the rest of the day. And now I could check on the trade!
 
A Trip to the Thirty-First Floor 21
As I ran back to the file room to grab the letter, which I immediatelyrecognized and which I had personally placed in the correct location only24 hours before, I noticed Scott walking down the far hall of the office. Hewas more than 50 feet away and it was impossible to yell loud enough toget his attention. That meant that he wasn’t watching the trade!
Ibolted back to my desk to get the update. But the screen was blank—just a screen saver. The Amazing software was closed; the trading accountprogram was no longer open. And I had no idea where to find Scott. And Ineeded to deliver the letter pronto.
Then I heard Mr. Johnson's voice booming from down the hall. Reluc-tantly Ileft my desk, determined to never again leave it while I had an opentrade. Having to delay my knowledge of the outcome was going to kill me.
MY EYES ARE OPENED
 
Ineeded a special code to even get the elevator to stop at the 31st floor. Onexiting the elevator, all I saw in front of me was a small lobby, with furni-ture that appeared to have never been used. Brass letters spelled outERNEST WELLINGTON AND COMPANY above the secretary whoguarded the desk, and behind her was a steel door that fit in very nicelywith the wood trim in the rest of the small room. I stated my purpose, shemade a phone call to check my identity, and then she turned around,swiped a card through a slot, and the steel door unlocked. She pushed itopen, and while turning around and leaving me, said something which Inever heard. In fact, I almost had to cover my ears to protect them from thenoise I now encountered.
I could feel the door close behind me—it hit me in the butt—but Ihardly moved. I was staring at the trading floor of a major Wall Street firm,and I thought I had been teleported to another planet.
There were at least 20 rows of desks, formed in a giant half-circle,starting directly in front of me, and extending out all the way across thefloor to the other end of the building. At least 200 men and a few womenwere yelling, pounding on their computers, and watching their screens.There was so much happening right here, just a few floors below where Ihad been working for 11 years.
I forgot entirely about Anderson, and just wandered onto the floor.Glass windows looked out on midtown from the west side, and every otherwall had glass conference rooms, one after the other, mostly empty. Abovethe conference rooms were screens: Some screens showed what were ob-viously quotes on stocks or bonds or whatever, and some showed what ap-peared to be news conferences from around the world, with closed
 
  
 
22 ADVENTURES OF A CURRENCY TRADER
captioning but no sound. I felt as if time stood still for me and was movingat 1,000 miles per hour for everyone around me.
It was chaos.
Walking a few feet forward, I stood next to a guy who was probably 21years old, and he was screaming into his phone something about sellingstock in November for some price that I cannot remember. The man nextto him was at least twice his age and had his head in his hands, and didn’tlook very happy. The woman down one more seat was poking her fingerinto her trading screen, and saying something to the guy next to her aboutCommitments of Traders, and how she was owed a case of beer.
And this scene was repeated, row after row, until I was dizzy. I heardpeople talking about millions and millions of dollars. As I walked furthertoward the center of the floor, I heard a trader say to the guy next to himthat he had just dumped a million shares of GE. A million shares of GeneralElectric? That must have been worth tens of millions of dollars. How didhe get those shares? Upon whom had he dumped them? Why did they buythem? How did the dumpee feel about all of this?
There is a time in one’s life that is a wake-up call. This was mine.
Maybe it doesn’t happen to everyone. It might have happened to youwhen you learned about trading or peered over a friend’s shoulder to seehim making trades. It’s a moment when you feel as if you are just wakingup out of hibernation and realize that you have been missing life for at leastafew years, if not your entire prior existence. I forgot completely about myopen trade on the GBP/USD and thought: These men and women are mak-ing enormous amounts of money by trading. I had thought that $300 wasbig time.
No, this scene in front of me was big time. It was the biggest time of all.
I had never seen so many people this animated, this excited, this de-pressed, this wild—all working in the same room, talking about dumpingtens of millions of dollars of shares on someone else. Something clicked in-side me. Or it was more like something snapped.
I knew this is what I needed to be doing. Already I knew that I wantedto trade. Already I knew that I had the talent to do it—but this trading floor,this mass of chaotic buying and selling: This is what I wanted to do for therest of my life.
There could not have been a more ridiculous thought at the time. I hadtaken just one trade of my own. I was a file manager in a New York lawfirm, with ninth-grade math skills and a diploma from Ben Cardozo HighSchool. Surrounding me at that moment were men and women educated atsome of the finest universities in the United States—I probably was stand-ing among more than a hundred Harvard Business School graduates. It wasjust as likely that I'd be made partner that same day in my own law firmwithout a law degree, not to mention a college degree.
 
A Trip to the Thirty-First Floor 23
But I knew what I wanted. I wanted to do what these people did.
Now, I remembered my trade. Seeing all these people in a state of vio-lent anxiety over their trades made me feel part of the group. A member ofa brotherhood of traders who worried about whether their trade was prof-itable. Just like me.
“Hey, Mack, you lookin’ for somebody?” a voice called out to me.
I could not tell where it had come from, so I just answered while I waslooking around the room, “Anderson. Looking for Anderson.”
“Over in front of you, keep walking, to the conference room. You looklike you stepped in something.”
If I had been able to identify who was talking to me, I would haveasked about the current price on the British Pound.
Copies of the Wall Street Journal were everywhere, but most of themwere unopened. The sports sections of the New York Daily News and NewYork Post were opened across one out of three desks, at the least. Mosttraders wore casual clothes. If a guy had a sport coat of any kind, it wasstrewn over the back of his chair or on the floor.
Everywhere I looked around the trading floor, there were computerscreens and on those screens, charts. Not so different from the charts Iwould see if I watched business news on television, which was mostlynever. Every trader I could see—in fact, all of them—had at least three flatpanel computer monitors, and some had four. At least one of those screenson each desk was showing some form of financial charts. The charts stillmade no sense to me. But obviously they were indispensable. It was onemore thing I was going to have to learn.
Instead of spending more time gawking at the trading operation, I de-cided I'd be better off just getting over to see Anderson, and then gettingback upstairs to check on my trade.
I hurried to the conference room where I saw a thin, blond man, withwire glasses and a bow tie, standing by a sea of papers on a glass confer-ence table. Although he had boyish looks, it was obvious he was an impor-tant person around here, just from the way he stood at the table in deepthought, with his hand rubbing his chin. Maybe it was his ability to look socalm while there was so much madness happening right on the other sideof the glass conference room.
He grinned at me when I opened the door.
“You must be Harry Banes,” he said in a quiet voice. I would not haveheard him if the glass conference room walls had not been surprisinglysoundproof.
“Yes, that’s right. I brought this letter from Herb.”
He put out his hand to take the letter and smiled warmly. “How longhave you been with the firm?”
“About 10 years.”
 
  
 
24 ADVENTURES OF A CURRENCY TRADER
“How is it, working with Herb?”
I was not about to lose my job from a stupid comment, so I answeredas honestly as possible. “We’ll be working more closely now that he’s thesenior partner.”
“True. Where did you go to school?”
I didn’t really understand what he was asking, so I said, “Cardozo.”
“Oh, that’s a fine law school,” he said.
For a moment I thought about correcting him—I hadn’t gone to Ben-jamin Cardozo law school. I'd gone to Benjamin Cardozo High School.What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
“You from the city?” He asked.
“Yep, born and raised.”
“Who did you have for Corporations?” He asked, never letting his eyesoff mine.
I must have let my eyes fall out of my head at that moment, because itwas easily apparent that I had no idea what he was talking about. So Iacted like I hadn't heard him and stared out the window.
“Busy day today on the trading floor,” I told him. I said this with a matter-of-fact tone, as if I visited trading floors all the time and was pleased to seeeveryone busy at work.
“Sure is. CPI rocked the markets this morning. Sent stocks way up inahurry.”
Stocks were irrelevant. My buy trade on the GBP/USD was far moreimportant.
“And the dollar?” I asked.
He grinned. “So you're a student of the markets, I see.”
Inodded. “I do a bit of trading myself.”
“Well, then,” he said, “You'll be happy if you’re short dollars today.”
Short dollars? That meant selling dollars. I had bought British Pounds.This should not have been so confusing, but it was. I had bought the GBPtoday, which meant that I had sold USD, which meant that I was short dol-lars. And he was telling me that the dollar had gone down! That meant thatmore sweet profit was waiting for me upstairs.
“Actually,” I told him, “I should be short dollars as we speak.”
This pleased him immensely. “Fine, very fine. We need to make surethat we keep in touch. Anyway, about Corporations, who’d you have?”
Now I was screwed. “I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t even remember.”
With a quiet chuckle, he let me off the hook. “Too much trading, I pre-sume! Understood. Skipped corporations myself. By third year, I was skip-ping class and calling my broker to place trades. I paid more incommissions in my third year than I made in profits on every trade.” Andthen he patted me on the shoulder. Thankfully, our discussion about mylaw school experience, which I never had, was nearly over. He continued.
 
A Trip to the Thirty-First Floor 25
“Well, catch up on some of your corporations material—because we'regoing to form an in-house forex fund, and we're going to need a lot of helpon that. We've got investors from all over the place—some in mainlandChina, some in the Middle East. Will probably raise some eyebrows andneed some background checks. This is not just the ordinary setup. We’reputting five billion behind this to start.”
Five billion dollars? Whoa! I am happy he hadn’t asked how muchmoney I was making on my trades.
“Tell that to Herb when you get back. Tell him we might need somehelp with the fund and he should call me.”
All I could say was, “Will do,” and then I got out of the conferenceroom as quickly as I could stumble over myself.
I walked across the entire trading floor to make my way back. Onceagain, it seemed as if time stood still for me while it moved for every-one else. I felt like I was on a people mover, or a ride at Disneyland; I couldn'tquite wrap my head around what I was watching and hearing. It didn’t matterthat I took my time, anyway, because I knew my trade was okay, and I knewthat I wanted to soak up as much of this experience as possible.
This was a wild ride that I was going to have to repeat.
On the way back to the office, I hoped that Anderson and I could talkagain. Imagine how much he could teach me about currency trading!
Since I knew that my trade had done well, I stopped by Herb’s officefirst. Poking my head in his office, I gave him a thumbs-up sign, to let himknow [had delivered the letter. He was talking on the phone, had two otherattorneys in the office with him, but still took the time out to say, “Don’tever misplace a file again, or you're fired.”
I don't know what came over me at that point, maybe all the yellingand testosterone from the 31st floor had rubbed off on me. I looked him inthe eye and said: “Well, don’t look in the wrong place next time, or you'llhave to call me again.”
Then I walked away, positive that I was going to get fired and feelingreally good that I had stood up for myself. Wow! Just a few minutes in themidst of all those traders, and I had recaptured my optimism. It hit me sohard when it came back that I got chills up my spine.
I could be working down on the 31st floor, I told myself. If I wanted to,I could work there. And if Herb fired me, I could just start trading on myown. I should be trading for a living already. That was where I belonged.
The job didn’t really matter. The overdue rent didn’t matter. The creditcard debt seemed so much smaller. No matter how suddenly I had foundthis new path, it was pointing in the right direction. And I was going totake it.
As I walked down the hall, I heard Herb loudly call to the other attor-neys, “Well, let’s hope to God he didn’t talk to Anderson that way. Head of
 
  
 
26 ADVENTURES OF A CURRENCY TRADER
trading for the entire operation, and he probably walked in there and toldhim to find his own letters from now on.”
I stopped cold. The head of all trading? Anderson? The thin, pale guywith the Nerd Club for Men glasses? That’s the person I had talked to?Most excellent! My new friend on the 31st floor was a master trader!
The wheels started turning in my head. Could I go back down there?Could I ask him a bunch of questions about currencies? Would he offer meajob? What would I say? In this moment of supreme confidence, it seemedlike a great idea.
Even if Anderson didn’t want to sit and talk about currencies withme—he was certainly a very busy man—maybe he would let me justwatch the traders for a while and learn while sitting there. Yes! That wasa good idea. I literally propped myself up against my cubicle to keep fromfalling. How much time had just passed? Twenty minutes from the time Iwent downstairs until now? An hour at the most? Maybe I should go backdown there immediately and ask if I could watch the traders for the restof the day.
But I had a trade to check on. How much profit had I made? Another$300? More? When I get a flash of euphoric optimism, I believe that I amking of the world and all humanity should bow down before me and do mybidding.
Ifound Scott in the break room pouring himself a gigantic cup of coffee.
He smiled when he saw me. “You're gonna be happy.”
“T knew it! I knew it! Tell me the good news.”
“You got 20 pips, bro!”
“Pips?”
“Points. They call them pips in the forex market.”
“Just 20? Not more?”
He lowered his voice, like he was about to tell me a secret. “Well, itwas something like four hundred dollars in profit.”
I knew he was lying. Making $400 was impossible on the trade if he justgot 20 points, or pips. I had traded again for $10 per point, and he had made20 pips. That was $200, not $400. I told him this.
“Well, that’s true. But I exited your trade at 10 pips when the softwaretold me to get out. And it kept moving up, so fast, so I got in again.”
Iwas nervous, happy, and upset all at the same time. “You got in again?Did the software tell you to?”
“No, but it was moving up fast! I had to get a piece of that for you.”
“And you got 10 more pips?”
“Yep. I traded three times your usual trade size so I could make moremoney for each point.”
Oh, gosh, I thought. I had never thought of that. I could trade for morevalue per point, or pip, when I really thought the market was moving fast.
 
A Trip to the Thirty-First Floor 27
Scott was right in doing that for sure. But I was still not happy that he hadtaken a trade without permission from the software.
He was drinking his coffee in big gulps, obviously excited about hisperformance that morning. And I could not be too angry with him. Why, Ihad started with $1,000 a day ago, and now I had $1,700. If I could nearlydouble my account value every couple of days, this was going to be the eas-iest money I had ever made.
 
  
 
 
Two PromisingConversations
 
ecause I knew that I could trust John Murphy, I stopped by his officeB later that day.
He was happy to make time for me. “How is your daughter?” heasked.
I gave him a blank stare and said, “She’s fine,” in a way that clearly toldhim it was a strange question. I had forgotten the lie that I had told the daybefore about the emergency room.
“You've got a great new office.” The view was amazing from where wesat—we were looking out over midtown Manhattan.
“Thanks. This actually used to be a partner's office. Charlie Flank. Heleft to start his own practice on the East Side, writing wills for rich peoplewho want to leave everything to their poodles. Anyway, when Charlie leftthe firm last week, Herb let me move in.” It was obvious that John hadn’thad much time to move in. Some of Charlie’s stuff was lying on the floornear the door: a photo of Charlie with Mayor Bloomberg, a coffee mug with“MS Walk 2002” on the side, and a box of business cards. John continued:“Of course, I begged Herb to let me have it, so I could finally have a view.So what’s on your mind? Is this about the firm’s benefits?”
Ithen remembered my lie. “Oh no, not that. My daughter’s doing muchbetter now and everything worked out. I appreciate that.” He nodded,happy to know that he had cared deeply about a problem that I had nevereven had. “Actually, I wanted to ask you about trading. Have you ever beendown to the 31st floor?”
“Sure. I’ve got a friend who works down there. It’s pretty amazing.”
28
 
Two Promising Conversations 29
I then told John about my errand down to the 31st floor and that I hadmet with Anderson that day.
“Anderson told me that they are going to be starting a new forex fund.”
“Did you tell that to Herb?”
Ishook my head.
“Why are you telling this to me?”
“Herb scares me,” I admitted, “So he doesn’t deserve the newsjust yet.”
John smiled widely. He seemed to like that.
“And,” I continued, “I heard Anderson say some stuff that I want to fig-ure out.”
“Shoot. I'll help where I can.”
I took a deep breath. “Could they really be raising five billion?”
He looked at me sideways. “Oh, yes. Definitely. They could probablyraise twice that if they wanted to. Forex—currencies—it’s hot right now,white-hot. They are probably raising capital to do their own fund, ratherthan sell people shares in other forex funds. Other firms are doing it now,and it’s big business. These companies take high-net worth clients, evencorporations, and put their money in a fund that only trades internationalcurrency.”
“What do all those guys do for a living down there? What are theydoing?”
“They’re trading. Some of those guys are actually my classmates fromlaw school.”
“Trading? From law school?” Just like Anderson.
“Yes. Some of the guys in school just didn’t want to practice in a firm.So they interviewed on Wall Street instead. These firms are looking for apedigree, and Harvard Business or Harvard Law do equally well. It mightbe a bit tougher for the law guys, but there are fewer of them in the firstplace that want to go down there and scream and yell for a living. To tellyou the truth, it’s the guys down in the bottom of the law school class thatwent to work on Wall Street.”
“Why is that?” I speculated that the smart guys were getting the goodjob offers, and that at the bottom of the class you had to settle for a job onWall Street. It almost sounded like they were taking a step down when theywent to work as traders. John confirmed that and then rejected it.
“They are taking a step down, right, in a certain sense. Those guysdidn’t do well in law school because they were always going to Red Soxgames instead of Constitutional Law. Or they were sleeping in. Or theywere reading the business section or the stocks tables, or watching CNBC.Some of those guys just had it in their blood. One of my friends dated thegirl at the front desk on 31—and then spent every day for two weeks at atrading desk down there, acting like he was busy. He had a computer setup
 
  
 
30 ADVENTURES OF A CURRENCY TRADER
and everything. He didn’t attract attention, didn’t go to lunch with anyone,but he sat there for two weeks like he owned the place. He called me a fewtimes a day and started shouting into the phone to act like he was doingsomething.”
“What happened to him?”
“Anderson caught up with him.”
“Did he get thrown out?”
John laughed. “No. He got hired on the spot. Anderson knew about itfrom day one. You can’t get anything past that guy.”
Except, I thought, that I was not an attorney. John continued: “Ander-son watched Craig sit there and act like a trader for two weeks, dressingthe part, banging on the keyboard, yelling into the phone. And Craig knewhis stuff. He was smart, he knew currencies—and Anderson picked up onthat. He interviewed Craig right there, right in the middle of the tradingfloor.”
I was stunned. Maybe I could do the same thing. This guy Andersonseemed like the kind of person who would understand. If he threw me out,I really didn’t need the job anyway. At $400 per day, my own trading wasplenty enough. Then John continued: “In fact, Craig begged him at first notto throw him out. Craig thought he was going to be arrested. But Andersonwanted to talk shop. He started asking Craig what he thought about thevalue of the Euro to the Japanese Yen. He made some passionate speechabout interest rates or trade balances, and the current outlook for eacheconomy, and that now was the absolute perfect time for a buy based onhis technical analysis. Anderson logged into Craig’s computer and rightthere, bought five million Euros against the Japanese Yen.”
“Whoa.”
“Right. And the trade worked out, and Craig got the job. Good story.So,” he continued, clearly satisfied with his telling of the story, but nowpressed for time, “What can I do for you?”
“I want to talk to Craig. Or Anderson. Or anyone who knows abouttrading.”
“Why? You want to be a trader?” He wasn’t making fun of me. Ratherhe appeared to be sincere.
“Right. I want to be a trader. Maybe not down there. But maybe on myown.”
“Caught the bug, have you? That’s awesome.”
“So do you think I could meet Craig?”
Even though he wanted to help me, I could see that I was stretchingthe bounds of our relationship. He probably didn’t know if Craig would re-ally want to answer all my questions.
“Listen,” I said. “I have never been passionate about this job. I dogood work for the firm. I’ve been doing good work for 11 years, before
 
Two Promising Conversations 31
you even got here. But something happened when I went down there. Itmust be what you felt like when you first walked into a big law firm for aninterview.”
“Probably not, but go ahead,” he said.
“I just want to talk to him. Find out what is going on down there on thetrading floor. I swear, I would sneak in there and do what Craig did if I hadthe guts. But I don’t. I would barf all over the desk on the first day.”
This was the best job of begging that I could do, but John wasn’t goingfor it. I could see that something was bothering him. Most likely, it was thefact that he was going out of his way to help me when I had nothing in re-turn to offer him. Or did I?
“How much is this forex fund deal worth to the firm?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It’s a lot of money. It’s not just the offering documents,but registrations, compliance issues, ongoing legal support—maybe evensome introductions to some of our clients, and of course the backgroundchecks that Anderson mentioned to you. Probably over two million dollarsin fees.”
“Herb doesn’t know about this yet.”
John stopped shrugging and looked me straight in the eye. “What areyou saying?”
“You get me lunch with Craig.”
“And?”
“‘Tll get you a meeting with Anderson about the forex fund.”
“You really think you can set up a meeting with Anderson and me?”
Inodded. “I’m positive. He nearly hired me on the spot to start work onit.” That wasn’t exactly true, but it wasn’t all wrong, either.
“And Herb?”
Now it was my turn to shrug. “What about Herb?”
“What if he finds out?”
I grinned. “I won't be working here any longer anyway. And you'll haveto go to Herb, anyway, and tell him about the deal. The most you'll get outof this is credit, but it will be big credit.”
With that, we shook hands and the deal was done. John called Craig,right there, and while they were talking—even from a few feet away—Icould hear the roar of the voices on the trading floor. It sounded like sweetmusic to me.
WHY TAKE PROFITS WHEN I CAN RISK MORE?
 
To say the least, my wife was impressed with the profits. We had a conver-sation that I will never forget. Word for word, I can remember it perfectlysix years later.
 
  
 
32 ADVENTURES OF A CURRENCY TRADER
My Wire: Do you think we should take some of the money out?ME: Definitely not.
My Wire: Why not?
Me: I can now increase the size of the trades.
From the look on her face, I could tell that my wife was not privy to theobvious wisdom of this strategy. It was frustrating to have to explain to herthe intricate details of how I was on my way to becoming a currency trad-ing tycoon, that I was on a hot streak, and that I was going to have a poolwith midnight blue water and with attendants who served me drinks. Ineeded to be trading for more money per pip now, and I'd need all themoney in the account.
I told her about my experience on the 31st floor as well.
“Do you think you could get a job there?”
“T don’t think so,” I told her. “Those guys all have Harvard degrees.”
“You could do it. lam sure you could do a great job there,” she told me,and this made me happy. It pleased me greatly to hear that my wife couldtell that I knew what I was doing.
“I think I would like working there. I would never have expected it orthought about it. But when I walked through that steel door and saw thattrading floor, something clicked inside me. I couldn’t hear anything butyelling and screaming. But for the first time in months, maybe years, I feltpeaceful about our financial problems. I started to see how we could payour rent consistently. Something clicked. I was standing on... well, itsounds lame but I was standing where I should be. It was like I should havebeen there all along.” She was smiling at me now. She realized that I hadnever felt this way about a job before. “All along, I should have been work-ing as a trader. I don’t have the degrees, I don’t have the math, but I do haveasecret weapon.”
“What’s that?” I could see that she was practically giggling. My wife!Happy! Pregnant, poor, wife of a lowly file manager, but happy!
“Connections. I am having lunch today with Craig Taylor, one of thetraders at Ernest Wellington. He’s going to help me do even better than I’vedone so far.”
I wanted to trade again that night, but the kids and my wife got in theway and I didn’t get the chance. I determined that tomorrow I’d make moretrades. If I really wanted to turn up the heat and make some coin, I wasgoing to have to make more trades every day. One or two trades was justnot enough.
 
 
LessonsLearned
 
over 6 feet tall, with an athletic frame and a cheerful, charismatic
face. This was the type of guy who you knew had been elected classpresident and who set up the weekly poker tournaments in the dorms,stayed up all night taking money from his friends, and then ran in a trackmeet the next day. I immediately liked him.
Even better still, Craig was happy to help from the first moment that Imet him. He didn’t seem to mind that I was totally using him. I had a zillionquestions, and he was ready for them. He didn’t even care that I inter-rupted him during an answer, so that I could ask another question. Thiswas a good omen. I had a friend on the inside. It was lunchtime, and I stillhad not traded yet for the day, and talking to Craig was making me moreanxious than ever to get back to