A KNACK FOR NUMBERS
At first glance, George Haywood seems as straight
as they come. Then get him talking. The son of two teachers, Haywood
graduated from high school at 16. With perfect scores of 800 in
both his physics and chemistry pre-college achievement tests and
a 772 in math, it was obvious that Haywood had a gift for solving
extremely complex problems.
Three years later, however, he took time off from
pre-med studies at Harvard University to work as a flight attendant--just
for the fun of it. And instead of hitting the books at Harvard
Law School, Haywood spent most of his time counting blackjack
cards in casinos from Atlantic City to Panama. He says he treated
the mastery of his self-taught discipline "like a job"--and
was wellpaid for his efforts. Haywood says his winnings amounted
to six figures, enough to support himself for two years after
the rest of his law class had graduated and he had stopped frequenting
the gaming tables.
When the money started to dwindle and Haywood realized
he wasn't really interested in law, friends on Wall Street piqued
his interest in pursuing a fast-paced career in trading.
Haywood was quickly hired by Lehman Brothers,
now a division of Shearson Lehman Holdings Inc., and chose to
trade corporate bonds. It was, he notes, the hot area in the early
'80s, "the altar at which all traders prayed."
With that sort of history and true genius for
numbers, it's no wonder that, in 1982, Haywood finished first
in his sales and trading training class at Lehman Brothers, whose
parent company is owned by American Express Co. Equally not surprising
is that as a managing director there less than 10 years later,
Haywood routinely outperforms many of his fellow corporate bond
traders.
Haywood's job is to sell big blocks of long industrial
bonds to banks, insurance companies and pension funds. He adds:
"The day the stock market crashed in 1987, was the greatest
day the bond market had experienced in decades." During periods
of unusually low interest rates like now, long bonds (which will
mature in 10 years) attract greater demand. Haywood can sell these
bonds at a higher price to investors looking to lock in a higher
rate for future gains. (Haywood, authorized to commit as much
as$500 million of his firm's capital, has an all-time high for
one month of $5 million in profit for his firm.)
Haywood attributes his success as a trader to
his head for figures. He also displays a trader's necessary knack
for thinking fast on his feet and under pressure, assessing risk
and knowing when to tolerate it. Working well with and responding
quickly to clients and salespeople also are traits that keep him
at the top of his industry.
Following a two-yea r stint as head trader in
his area, a job that is 95% administrative and managerial, Haywood
returned to the center of the trading floor, to the job he loves.
As for blackjack, the 39-year-old gambler-turned-trader says he
doesn't miss it. "If you put the same amount of effort into
law or medicine or trading," says Haywood, "you can
probably make more money and hold your head up in society."
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