Tom Baldwin (trader)
Encyclopedia
Lucian Thomas Baldwin III is a bond
Bond (finance)
In finance, a bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay interest to use and/or to repay the principal at a later date, termed maturity...

 trader
Trader (finance)
A trader is someone in finance who buys and sells financial instruments such as stocks, bonds, commodities and derivatives. A broker who simply fills buy or sell orders is not a trader, as they are merely executing instructions given to them. According to the Wall Street Journal in 2004, a managing...

 investor and founder of the Baldwin Group of companies. He was described by the Wall Street Journal as the trader who can singlehandedly move the Treasury bond
Treasury security
A United States Treasury security is government debt issued by the United States Department of the Treasury through the Bureau of the Public Debt. Treasury securities are the debt financing instruments of the United States federal government, and they are often referred to simply as Treasuries...

 market. His preferred instrument to trade is the 30-year bond in the pits of the Chicago Board of Trade
Chicago Board of Trade
The Chicago Board of Trade , established in 1848, is the world's oldest futures and options exchange. More than 50 different options and futures contracts are traded by over 3,600 CBOT members through open outcry and eTrading. Volumes at the exchange in 2003 were a record breaking 454 million...

.

Career

After receiving his Masters degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...

 in agribusiness
Agribusiness
In agriculture, agribusiness is a generic term for the various businesses involved in food production, including farming and contract farming, seed supply, agrichemicals, farm machinery, wholesale and distribution, processing, marketing, and retail sales....

 Baldwin worked as a meat packer in Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

. He took advice from a friend and moved to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 with the knowledge about trading he had obtained from a few courses taken at graduate school
Graduate school
A graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate degree...

. With the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 experiencing high inflation in the early 1980s, treasury bonds
Treasury security
A United States Treasury security is government debt issued by the United States Department of the Treasury through the Bureau of the Public Debt. Treasury securities are the debt financing instruments of the United States federal government, and they are often referred to simply as Treasuries...

 became a preferred market for hedgers
Hedge (finance)
A hedge is an investment position intended to offset potential losses that may be incurred by a companion investment.A hedge can be constructed from many types of financial instruments, including stocks, exchange-traded funds, insurance, forward contracts, swaps, options, many types of...

 and speculators
Speculation
In finance, speculation is a financial action that does not promise safety of the initial investment along with the return on the principal sum...

, resulting in high volume and trading activity. These bonds became Baldwin's favourite instrument
Financial instruments
A financial instrument is a tradable asset of any kind, either cash; evidence of an ownership interest in an entity; or a contractual right to receive, or deliver, cash or another financial instrument....

 to trade, and he leased a seat on the exchange
Futures exchange
A futures exchange or futures market is a central financial exchange where people can trade standardized futures contracts; that is, a contract to buy specific quantities of a commodity or financial instrument at a specified price with delivery set at a specified time in the future. These types of...

.

As a full member director of the CBOT
Chicago Board of Trade
The Chicago Board of Trade , established in 1848, is the world's oldest futures and options exchange. More than 50 different options and futures contracts are traded by over 3,600 CBOT members through open outcry and eTrading. Volumes at the exchange in 2003 were a record breaking 454 million...

, Baldwin has been a part of its executive committee, Commodity Pool Operator/Commodity Trading Advisor committee among many other executive positions at the exchange. He currently serves as Chairman of Baldwin Group Ltd., the parent company of several investment
Investment
Investment has different meanings in finance and economics. Finance investment is putting money into something with the expectation of gain, that upon thorough analysis, has a high degree of security for the principal amount, as well as security of return, within an expected period of time...

 and financial services
Financial services
Financial services refer to services provided by the finance industry. The finance industry encompasses a broad range of organizations that deal with the management of money. Among these organizations are credit unions, banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, consumer finance companies,...

. Companies in the group include: Baldwin Commodities Corp., a Treasury Bond Futures proprietary trading company, and Baldwin Managed Futures, a CTA
Commodity trading advisor
A commodity trading advisor is an asset manager who follows a set of systematic investment strategies in futures contracts and options on futures contracts. The advisors originally operated predominantly in commodities markets, but today they invest in any liquid futures market. They are...

. Baldwin is also the current owner of Granot Loma
Granot Loma
Granot Loma is an estate located on County Road 550 north of Marquette, Michigan, constructed in the tradition of the Adirondack camps of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries...

, the great American castle on the southern shore of Lake Superior
Lake Superior
Lake Superior is the largest of the five traditionally-demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the...

 in Marquette County, Michigan
Marquette County, Michigan
-National protected areas:* Hiawatha National Forest * Huron National Wildlife Refuge* Ottawa National Forest -University:Northern Michigan University is a four-year university, established in 1899, located in Marquette, Michigan, on Michigan's Upper Peninsula...

.

Further reading

  • Schwager, Jack D. Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders, Collins: 1993, ISBN 0-88730-610-1
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