I was in NYC recently, meeting with a potential institutional client for my new hedge fund. Then, I met with an old friend that I'll call "Harry."

Harry's title is, “Sales Trader”, thus he carries out orders for institutional investors such as hedge funds and mutual funds. He had an absolutely successful career, and used to take care of me, I was one of his clients, in my “Ron Pollack Bulldog Days”. Though we did continue to keep in contact with each other, he and I retired from trading around the same period of time back in 2004.

Both Harry and I had varying, though generally little, success with business ventures after our time on Wall Street. After this, Harry began to miss the game and questioned me about returning to trading. I missed it as well. 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. I saw Harry last fall and he looked stressed, which is unusual for a guy who can handle million share orders in volatile stocks like clockwork. Firms were disappearing all over the place, and my account, the one he had been counting on for his own return, was not there.

Soon after seeing Harry I met “Doug,” who runs a small brokerage firm that caters to hedge funds. Right away Harry can time mind and I put the 2 of them together. It went well because Doug gave Harry a trial run, and Harry did very well. During his first couple of phone calls about some old accounts, he found a big order and it increased from then on.

He's only worked there for four months, but Harry is already one of the top producers in Doug's company. So it wasn’t surprising that when we met for dinner Harry was beaming. He’s making money, good money and having a blast. I was so pleased. 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.I was very pleased as we were at a great location, one of the city's best steakhouses.

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.” His answer was refreshing and went something like this, he said, “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. While my paycheck has shrunk, I really can not complain. we’re survivors and there’s business to be done.
 For people who can somehow find ways to be productive, buisness will always be open.here’s to you my friend!
 Continue to show us how to do it. signing off for now.