Sometimes I am asked how I got interested in making and managing money. I have talked with many friends in the Wall Street game, and it seems that a lot of us had a knack for the business or the markets at a young age. Even though, technically, my resume starts at Yale, I did have many previous so called “careers”. At the age of 12 I became a candy trader.
I was recently reminiscing with friends and my mom. Moms love to tell stories about their children, and me being the baby of the family, my mom, Shirley, has a lot of fond memories of my childhood. One day she got a call from my principal asking her to some into school.
I switched to a private school in the suburbs from a public one in Detroit in 6th grade. There was a candy store that sold candy that my suburban friends were drooling over that was near my old school where I still lived. At our synagogue I was attending Hebrew classes preparing for my Bar Mitzvah where they hd the best candy wrapped in foil that was in the shape of a coin. That Israeli gum really drove my friends crazy. I started to resell the gum I bought in bulk to my friends, in fact I was buying there entire stock at the synagogue. Most of my capital needs were funded by my friends since I demanded payment in advance. On the other hand I delivered the candy before and after class and in homeroom and offered a wide variety.
Soon, my business selling candy grew rapidly. Until the principal realized something was going on at school and notified my mother I was raking in the profits. I got the message. Soon after I sold my remaining inventory to my friends at good prices. That was the end of my business venture, but it was the start of me analyzing supply and demand in the marketplace, looking for ways to profit from market conditions, and knowing when to take profits and move on.
It is interesting to see how people get their start in their career choices. I go over some other influences in my life in my Ron Pollack blogs.
A father of with along with my wife Mimi, like to keep things educational. We feel like we are on vacation year round living in Florida, as we have special access to activities that others travel hundreds of miles to experience. We spent most of our weekends in one of Florida’s most beautiful and secluded beaches, North Clearwater Beach, when the kids were smaller. One of the special seasons we enjoyed, was “Turtle Season”. Seeing the turtle areas ripped off they always asked us questions about the turtles. So I decided to share some of my favorite turtle facts they can pass on to their kids.
-Hatchelings weigh less than one ounce and are only two inches long. -200 to 300 pounds is what they weigh full grown.
-The nest temperature during incubation determines a sea turtle’s sex. -Cold will be a boy.
-Girls prefer warm nests.
(My next door neighbor Ellen is on the board of the nearby Clearwater Marine Aquarium, which not only rescues sick or injured sea animals, they also monitor nearly 26 miles of Pinellas County’s coast line and reports on any nesting activity. The combination of releasing injured and sick turtles back into the wild while ensuring as many hatchlings as possible make it into the Gulf helps protect these species from extinction. I like checking out their cmaquarium.org website.)
Now for the Fun Facts! -80% of Loggerhead turtles in the U.S. call Florida’s beaches home.
-Sea turtles have been around for over a hundred million year so far. -The only time they comes ashore is when the female lays her eggs.
One of our favorite Ron Pollack family vacation spots is our Florida beach house because of the turtles.
I wanted to share this update one my oldest son Nathan. He spends hours at the barn, and often is there bathing, brushing and lunging his horse and riding it in the ring. There were even some twin fawns he was able to show her. He is 15 and has been in Oregon over the summer. His old friend from the neighborhood, Francesca, is also staying nearby in Oregon. She was recounting to her mom the old days when Nathan was six or seven and we would go to our beach house for the weekend, a few blocks from where she grew up. That part of beach is so remote and safe that Francesca’s mom never even locked the doors—-except on the weekends when Nathan was in the neighborhood. Before anyone else was up he would be out the door at 6:30AM, to her house on his bike and would end up walking through her house looking for someone to wake up to play. So Francesca was excited to see how Nathan has grown up. “Indian Pony” is his gelding horse he took her to see nicknamed Apache. Eventually he might get the stallion he wants but now he is starting with a gelding.
It was nice to get an update from Oregon! I love our Ron Pollack family updates.
All my friends and family know that my wife, Mimi, and I love tennis. We recommend lessons at McMullen’s Chall Tennis Academy to anyone who wants to experience the same results. I am looking forward to improving my game and playing on a regular basis again, when I find the time. Mimi is always coming home a happy player now. (I used to play competitively as a kid, but then tennis took a back seat to investing, to kids and other pursuits.) Yet, I still have not given up on the sport. One of the biggest tennis states is Florida. Even saying that we still ran into frustrations, even after attending fancy tennis clubs and owning a house with a tennis court. Mimi’s game has been revitalized with the head pro, Erick Chall’s help, though I still have not had the time. Erick’s technique for teaching tennis is far superior to any Mimi has been exposed to over a number of years of “on again, off again” tennis. Luckily Eric’s enthusiasm for the sport is highly contagious. My son went from an awkward kid with a few lucky shots to a really good tennis player after he regained interest.
I am now informing everyone of the terrific resources Clearwater now has to offer on my Ron Pollack blog.
I was in NYC recently, meeting with a potential institutional client for my new hedge fund. After the meeting I got together with an old friend, whom I’ll refer to as “Harry”, for dinner.
Harry’s title is, “Sales Trader”, thus he carries out orders for institutional investors such as hedge funds and mutual funds. I was one of his accounts, in my “Ron Pollack Bulldog Days”,he had an extremely successful career, and used to cover me. He retired or took a break from trading around the same time I did in 2004, but we continued to stay in touch with one another.
Harry and I, both, engaged in a variety of unrewarding and unprofitable business ventures after exiting Wall Street. When some time passed, Henry missed playing the game and questioned me if I would go back to trading. I also missed that, in fact. In early 2008 I informed him I would return to managing money; he was thrilled and was eager to get back into it also.
With the market turmoil of the second half of the year, the launch of my new fund was delayed. its surprise for me that a always happy and hard working man,harry ,handle million share orders in volatile stocks looked like a depress person. Firms were disappearing left and right, and my account that he had been counting on for his own return, was not there either.
Shortly after my visit with Harry, I met a man I’ll call “Doug,” the head of a small brokerage with hedge funds as clients. I thought of Harry and I right away and combined the two. It was successful because Doug had offered Harry a test run, so Harry aced it. After the first couple of phone calls to old accounts he got a huge order and it increased from there.
Now after only 4 months on the job, Harry is one of Doug’s top producers. Thus, it was no surprise to see Harry beaming when we met for dinner. He is earning money, pretty good money and having a good time. I was very happy. In fact he said, “Ron Pollack I am going to treat you every time you come to NYC,then Harry announced that dinner would be his treat.” We were at one of the City’s best steakhouses so I was doubly pleased.
Toward the end of the evening, I asked Harry this question, “Every day we’ve been hearing stories of doom and gloom like the end of Wall Street, the end of hedge funds, the end of the world as we know it. Obviously things are messed up but I’d like your perspective on all of that changed in light of your recent success.Ron, there are a lot of people hurting right now and I truly feel for them, but I am living proof that if you’re good at what you do, have the willingness to work hard and apply yourself and are realistic in your expectations, you can make it and even flourish in times like these,His answer was refreshing and went something like this, he said. Even though I’m not being paid as much as I was in the past, there’s no reason for me to complain. we’re survivors and there’s business to be done.
If you are productive, someone will always be willing to do business with you.here’s to you my friend!
Continue to show us how to do it. Ron Pollack, leaving for the moment.
This January, I went to see my first Sundance Film Festival in Park City, a trip without our kids we’d been looking forward to for a while.
The town would be a “zoo”, and traffic all but impossible to manage,we had been warned about that. Probably due to our shrinking economy and the excitement of the Obama Inauguration,luckily, this wasn’t so.
Most of Hollywood that attends Sundance also were invited and/or attended the inaugration.
It was helpful that this was a “quiet” year at Sundance, as it assisted me in learning the ropes, such as how to navigate through the process of obtaining tickets. I think over the course of two weeks at Sundance, I learned 80% of what I need to know in order to achieve the following goals for our next Sundance Festival.:
1) See the films we want to see, including the ones that have “The Buzz”.
2) Obtain the best seats each time.
3) To get extra tickets on short notice,be able.
4) Leave time between movies so you have enough time to eat.
5) Use less money and time taking care of these goals than I did this last year.
What you experience at The Sundance, totally depends on what you expected it to be. My wife is particular and likes good seats. Thanks to my Blackberry, it’s possible for me to obtain them for us and still stay connected to work while standing in line. To become a member of the “Patron Circle was my solution. Gaining priority access to the films without standing in line was the real motivation for making our donation to the Sundance Institute,yes, I love to support the arts. For some people acquiring a ticket for their preferred film is extremely important, even if they have to wait in line.
One of the benefits is that we enjoyed several of the movies. Push—a truly wrenching movie about abuse which brought me to tears; Spread—a Hollywood romp with Ashton Kutcher which was my wife’s “lowbrow” favorite; Good Hair—a somewhat amusing yet still serious documentary from Chris Rock concerning the quest of African American women for non-curly hairdos; 500 Days of Summer—a romantic film with an acid quality—“Man, she’s a Dude!”Of her lack of feminine romatic tendencies because of “Man, she’s a dude” was the line that sumed up Zoey Deschanel’s chracter, as Summer.
Almost daily trips to the Patron Circle Office, to make last minute changes to our ticket selections.
The Bad: Acquisition of these passes does not entitle you to attend any film you choose without a prepaid ticket.
We’ve walked out on some “stinkers”. “Unmade Beds” was an example. We think it was about teen lust run wild in the United Kingdom, but it was so bad we couldn’t sit through it to analyze the message. “The Carter” peered into the soul of a man bereft of humanity, who manages to make himself a success in life. The irony there was lost on the public. Finally, “Motherhood” was a true wreck of a film more resembling a bad sitcom for the casting department. We felt it was a total waste of Uma Thurman’s amazing gifts, reducing her to the level of a grade B soap star.
Suprise, somehow the affair grew familiar and somewhat comforatable after a while that the surprising and we started our Sundance vacation feeling like total strangers to the scene, even though we own a home in Park City since last spring.
Having been on location with movie actors and directors on the stage at question and answer sessions after every movie, as well as sitting in theatres with them during movie screenings. Being accorded five star treatment from the staff of the Patron’s Circle Office. Becoming accustomed to the traffic patterns and boarding a taxi for a ride through the back streets and alleys of Park City. Gate crashing at private parties with a friend of a friend whose been invited; all these moments made us feel as though we were experienced hands at the screen.
We had an amazing art director for the Christmas play this year, which we saw last night, that made the show look professional. In addition, I was very pleased with the performance of my children. The confidence and enthusiasm bubbled over in Rachel. (She was so precious in that old Dalmatian costume of Nathan’s.). Levi and Lila also had fun on stage: they love to sing, and they also got to show some of their gymnastics skills.
Lately, Levi’s really gotten into tennis. He goes to tennis clinic almost every afternoon and he quit gymnastics. This guy is going to be good. He enjoy’s any sport with a ball, he is turning out to be an all around athlete. (A mutual friend in the neighborhood who played collegiate baseball, would always comment on our six-year-olds amazing throwing arm, while they played catch, and when he was just a little older he only ever had an interest in shooting hoops.) It was golf this past summer. For years now, we’ve tried to get him interested in tennis. It is something our family can do together. (whereas my baseball and basketball days are long gone). Eric is a player at our cities tennis center who just went pro, which has inspired Levi and even Mimi and I play more now.
We are taking a two-week vacation in the Utah snow. We give them lots of DVD and Nintendo time — something they don’t normally get at home,the kids are electrified: they love going on the plane. And I love the plane too: once everyone is settled into their seats, with their electronic entertainment, I get to sit back, nap, and read a book. Absolutely no CNBC. There is no Bloomberg. No telephone. No email. -Smile-
This is our first family ski trip since we’ve relocated from CO to UT. Mimi and I hope the trip is worth all the work, she’s been slaving for weeks to get ready. We had everything totally “dialed in” in Vail; now it’s like starting over. What time do we pick them up, what can we do with them after the ski day is over, and where do I go to find/replace their lost mittens, goggles, hats, etc,but once we figure out the logistics like where do we drop the kids. I’m sure it’s going all turn out fine. I can’t wait to see Rachel on skis. We tried last year, but she was only 2 and hadn’t started preschool yet, so it was a bit rough. She was not ready to attend ski school. Now it should be much easier, and she’ll be so adorable!
Ron Pollack was moved by the events of 9/11 and wanted to help. Prior to retiring from the hedge fund business, he became actively involved with the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project, whose purpose is to help the heroes of 9/11. During the rescue and recovery operations, tens of thousands of rescue workers received unprecedented exposures to toxic dust, smoke, gas and fumes; many have developed serious health effects as a result of these exposures.
At the request of union officials and rescue workers, the detoxification project was established to help these men and women recover their health. All project services are provided on a humanitarian basis, at no cost. Ron took on the role of Chairman of the Fundraising Committee in 2002 and worked tirelessly to ensure that the project had the funds it needed to help those who came to it. As Carol Hamaker, Executive Director of the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project states, “Ron really stood up and took a leadership role to get our living heroes some help”.
Ron himself sponsored many rescue workers for the detoxification program over the years. In a letter to Ron, the daughter of one of the many rescue workers that Ron sponsored wrote “My Dad had not been feeling well for months and his symptoms were only worsening despite his more frequent visits to doctors and increases in medication. He was not himself and it was disheartening to watch. He lost eleven of his friends and colleagues of his firehouse on 9/11not to mention other firefighters he knew from other houses. He looked and acted old. He was pale and his mood and energy was overall down. During his first days on his program we saw his mood brighten up. He seemed hopeful and excited. Each day my Dad improved. All of our spirits lifted and we were happy to see him getting back to his old self. On the morning he completed his program he knew he felt “normal” again. These were the best words he could have ever said. Through Ron’s kindness and generosity he is giving so many people the best gift they could ever imagine; recovery, health and the best of all, hope! My Dad has been given back to us and we are all so grateful to him.”
Ron considers his participation in this project to be one of his greatest achievements. With his help, the project has been able to restore quality of life to nearly 1000 rescue workers. These recoveries have brought relief and hope to thousands more of their husbands, wives, children and colleagues. Today, the philanthropic effort that Ron brought life to has grown to include well over 150 foundations, corporations and individual sponsors.
