New book by Larry Connors - Click here to read more
For
those of you who are passionate about sports, you probably recognize this man’s
face. Bill Pidto has been with ESPN for nearly 10 years, having hosted
SportsCenter, ESPN2’s NHL 2Night, appearing on NFL PrimeTime for two years and
now is on ESPN News daily throughout the week. What you probably don't know is
that Bill is a TradingMarkets.com member and a passionate trader. He's been
trading for approximately seven years and is on the same path that many traders
take on their way to learning how to properly play this game.
I hope you enjoy this interview we did with Bill a few weeks ago!
Larry Connors: Hi Bill. I know you came out of Cornell. What year did you graduate and what was the path to get over to SportsCenter?
Bill Pidto: I graduated Cornell in 1987 with a BA degree in Psychology. The great thing about being in college in Ithaca, NY, is that it gave somebody like myself who was interested in becoming a broadcaster a tremendous opportunity to get involved, because of the fact that it was such a small town. I knew I'd always wanted to be a sportscaster but in this industry, education is not that important. So it's not that critical that you come out of one of these universities with a Communications degree. So I picked something that I was interested in. I tried to go to the best school that I could. But the key thing is that you come out of wherever you go to school with a representation of your work, meaning a tape. So what was really helpful was coming out of Ithaca, coming out of Cornell, with radio experience. I helped call Cornell events on the radio; I worked on the local cable channel so I actually had a TV tape. When you're trying to do what I'm trying to do, that's all that matters...what you look like and what you sound like on tape.
So from there, I went to Binghamton, NY. First job: $6 an hour. Rent: $120 a month. And it's just like becoming a single A baseball player. There's absolutely no difference. So I'm in single A in Binghamton for two years. What you're trying to do is move up a little bit whenever you can and the next job I had, I went to Syracuse in 1989 for about six months. And then I got a really big break because there was a network I heard about that was going to do 24-hour sports news. Now ESPN, as most of you know, has a lot of events, so it's not 24-hour sports news. But this company back in 1990, the Mizlou Sports News Network, took a crack at 24-hour sports news. I was one of the younger ones hired. A lot of it had to do with the fact that I wasn't going to cost anybody that much money. That was like $35,000 at that point, 1990, after making like $23,000 at Syracuse.
Long story short: This was a little bit ahead of its time. Knowing what we know now, it was a great idea. But in 1990, it was just a little bit too early for this. So it wasn't capitalized enough and the company, ten months after its launch, went out of business. And within that ten-month period, we launched a network in Washington, DC, and about eight months into it, we moved back to New Jersey and then we folded.
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"... I stood on the unemployment |
At this point, I'm living in Hackensack, NJ, and I'm unemployed. With my Cornell degree. I don't know if anybody else who is reading this has this experience but I stood on the unemployment line with my Ivy League degree in Hackensack, NJ. So that's where I was at the age of 25. And I thought because this was a national network that I was going to walk into something without any problem and I was going to get a great job. It turned out I was unemployed for about six months. I ended up having to free lance on the high school show at ESPN, at the time it was called "Scholastic Sports America," and I wasn't even on the air. I was like the field producer. I was lugging a guy's tripod -- you know, I was like his grunt, his grip. After doing that for six months, I went to Boston. An old executive from Mizlou Sports News Network worked at the 24 News Channel -- not Sports Channel but News Channel -- in Boston. He hired me to do sports for this News Channel and I was there for a year and a half and from there, I guess it was February 1993, I had an audition at ESPN. In TV, it's not like being a lawyer, it's not like being a doctor, it's not like being a trader... There's one ESPN. If you get into ESPN, right away you're making a good buck. I was making thirty grand in Boston at the time. I go in for an audition. If I don't come through here, I'm going to be in deep trouble from a career perspective, because it's not like there's twelve ESPNs. There's one ESPN.
I was lucky enough to get in for the audition and I actually auditioned with a guy who I started with in Binghamton and who was my roommate, Karl Ravech, got the job at the time. I go back to Boston. I think my career is over. I mean what are the odds that two guys from Binghamton that start out together, audition against each other? They pick him. This was in February 1993, and thank heavens they call back in May to work on ESPN2. So that's when I started on ESPN2 in August 1993.
Obviously there were a lot of bumps in the road getting to where I've gotten. I can't tell you how many tapes I've sent out, how many post offices I've been to, how many people at the post office I've asked to bless my tapes... how many tapes... were never looked at. That's just the nature of this industry. Now obviously I've been very fortunate at ESPN. I've been there now almost a decade. I've gotten to do a lot of different things. The way it's worked out, is that if you would have told me in 1987 that I would have gotten to where I've gotten, I would have said, "No way!"
Connors: Bill, what's the main thing that you do right now at ESPN?
Pidto: Mainly right now I work on the ESPN news. I had been in the SportsCenter rotation for a number of years. I started out, did the NHL 2Night for a while, then I was in the SportsCenter rotation in the middle to late 90s. For the last year and a half, I've bene on ESPN news which ironically, is the Mizlou Sports News Network, 13 years later. All that ESPN news is, is 24-hour sports news. ESPN has events and SportsCenter. ESPN2 has a lot of events but ESPN News is all news. So, I've kind of come full circle.
Connors: Let's now jump over to trading. How did you get into it?
Pidto: Well, I started dating a woman who is now my wife, in 1996. We used to go to her brother-in-law's place and he had this huge screen with all these symbols on it. I just became fascinated by these symbols and what they meant, and these charts. At the time, he was working for Tudor Investments, he was the #2 guy at the firm and I just became fascinated by it. I opened up my first account and lost ten grand in two months. (Laughs)
Connors: It happens a lot to new traders.
Pidto: I was putting stop loss orders in before the market opened and the market would open up 12 cents and I'd be long and the thing would end down 15? I had no clue at the beginning about how to execute orders. My brother-in-law is a really dear friend of mine and he's a mentor in a lot of ways, but he really believes you've got to figure a lot of this out for yourself. And I'm still trying to figure it out seven years later but at least I know how to put a stop loss order in.
Connors: Have you been trading mostly futures the whole time?
Pidto: Yes, my exposure has just been futures because mainly that's what my brother-in-law has always done. I've never traded equities.
Connors: But trading is a passion for you?
Pidto: Yes. One of the problems I have is that I'm home all day because I don't have to be in at work until 3 p.m. (Laughs) So my goal is to add to my income... that would be great. But I'm still learning -- as we've talked about -- trying to develop a style that I'm comfortable with. I mean my mentor is basically a hedge fund guy so they can make their money on 20% of the trades.
Connors: Yes.
Pidto: They can hit that home run and have a great year. I've learned painfully over the years that I can't do that because I don't have enough capital.
Connors: Right. Most individual accounts are in the same boat. Looking to hit a home run is fine but if you don't hit it, ultimately, everything goes away.
Pidto: Right, and actually TradingMarkets.com has been a huge help because I've never really been exposed to the concept of piecing out a position to lock in gains. I mean when you're learning about this business, at least in my experience, no one ever tells you how to get out of a trade.
Connors: Right.
Pidto: The theory about piecing out and taking money off the table is something that really makes sense to me. I think it takes a lot of stress off of managing the position because you already have your money in your account and it's kind of the house's money from that point on.
Connors: As far as entries go, what have you found that's worked?
Pidto: I would say that a lot of times in these markets, the theory about buying new highs and selling new lows could be a very expensive way to do it. So after two or three years of figuring that out and losing a lot of money on just not being able to handle the position... the pullback situation off a trending market, or your Windows concept, are all things that I'm trying to incorporate into my trading. I have a tendency at times to try and pick bottoms. I try to pick tops too much and that's chewed me up a little bit as we go on here. I'm still trying to hone in consistently on a style that I know is my style, that is going to work for me and that I'm going to feel comfortable with. But as you guys know, I think this takes years. I mean it takes years to develop something that you're totally comfortable with.
Connors: Is trading harder to do than get yourself on SportsCenter or it always is difficult to reach the top, no matter what the field is?
Pidto: I'll tell you what. When you're on TV, one of the easy things about being on TV is that you get picked. You know, it's like being an actor. You get cast for a position. Once you get cast for a position, you do what you do. In my field, it's a subjective analysis. I'm rated from a subjective point of view which, in a way, can be really frustrating because I think I'm better than everybody, right? I mean that's the only way you can do this.
Connors: Right.
Pidto: But how do you say that Anchor X is better than Anchor Y? Five guys get into a room and say, "This guy's better than this guy." The beauty, to me, about trading, is that it's objective. I mean you're either up or you're down. You really can't quibble with that. So in a lot of ways, being an actor or being a sportscaster... what I do, I mean a lot of it is being persistent and to be honest, a fair amount of luck. Trading, every day you have to apply yourself, and I think it's much much harder. I mean every SportsCenter has their style. I just go out there and do my style. I have yet to adapt a consistent style to my trading, but you have to deal with the emotional swings of bad days. Even on my small level, I have a bad day, it's hard for me to focus at work. I get really upset. SportsCenter, you do your job. You go home. You don't really have to worry about it so much.
Connors: I've thought about this a lot. In a sense, trading is not that much different from being a professional athlete. There's a scorecard every day. Every day, at the end of the game, total points scored, rebounds... batting average if it's baseball analogy, they keep score every single day.
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"There's
a certain chaos... similar to when a market trades. |
Pidto: Being a sportscaster, I really don't. Because in my business, as I said, who knows? You have your favorite. I have my favorite. That's what can, at times, be frustrating about what I do.
Now there are some similarities that I really like. You know, if I'm doing a 10 o'clock show, just like when the market opens, I'd better be there. I mean I've got to be there when the show starts at 10 o'clock. I've got to be there when the market opens. There is a certain chaos that you have to manage when you work at ESPN because if you sit down at 10 o'clock, there's 50 different events that you'll be talking about doing highlights about and you're going to have to ad lib it, you're going to have to adjust, and something's going to happen.
For example, the other night I was on the air when an umpire got attacked in Chicago. You've got to adjust to that. That's something that's not planned necessarily when the day starts, but you've got to adjust. I was on the air when Darryl Kile died -- you remember the St. Louis Cardinals pitcher? These are all things that happen similar to when a market trades. You don't know what's going to happen. I like that but I guess maybe I'm an adrenalin junkie or something, I don't know...(Laughs)
Connors: I was watching you the night when your partner started coughing which ultimately led to -- it looked like he had a choking attack.
I understand the chaos. I don't know if you remember that. Actually, you were very funny. It looked like he was going to keel over and die, but you were just making fun of him and kept on going!Pidto: So you're watching ESPN news? That's good.
Connors: Yes. (Laughs) I was impressed. You kept your composure and the producer did too because you could hear hacking on the sidelines and they were just focused on you. I understand what you're saying about adapting. I guess the thing is you control -- let's go back a little bit -- with trading, you control your destiny more so than in broadcasting which, as you said, is subjective. With trading, you know exactly where you stand on any given day.
Pidto: Right. And as you go forward, if you can master it, obviously, you can kind of control what positions you're taking, what your risk is going to be. For example, I've made enough money today, I've made enough money this month -- I don't have to worry about it. There's no disputing the P&L statement. With TV -- if we go with the evening news anchors, I mean, 10 people like Dan Rather, 10 people like Brokaw -- the definition of what's good is totally nebulous. And as you go on and get older, at times, the randomness of these decisions can get frustrating.
Connors: What is the ultimate goal of your trading? Is there an ultimate target where you want to be?
Pidto: I would love to be a consistent money maker. Now I've made tremendous strides from the first two or three years when I couldn't execute a stop loss order... being caught limit down Now, I'm starting to hone in on a style that I can't tell you I'll have grand slam years, but at least I'm maintaining my capital, for the most part.
Connors: Is that because your strategies are more honed or your money management is more honed?
Pidto: Everything. I think my executions have less risk. I'm doing a much better job of getting out of good trades. I just have a better feel for what these markets look like -- support zones, resistance zones. I think if I can start mastering your method -- the piece-out method -- I think that hopefully is enough to turn me into a consistently good trader. I still make mistakes on execution. A lot of times I'm not reading the markets correctly in terms of what direction I'm taking, but at least I've learned, despite all these mistakes, I'm still in the game. And that's really encouraging.
Connors: Bill, if you were to give advice to somebody who like yourself is successful in their career and is looking now to succeed at trading at the same time, what would you tell them to do?
Pidto: I think one of my problems is that I'm a really intense passionate person. I might be better off at times if I would be able to just put something in there and not worry about it every day. I think I've over-managed a lot of times and kind of got myself stopped out of things. But for the most part, I think it's like anything else, you know, you have to be persistent. I've never been a professional at this but I take it very seriously.
The emotions can be very difficult to handle. I mean a losing day is just very, very painful. I think you really have to be almost a glutton for punishment -- to be honest with you. You have to be very competitive, and you really have to, as you were saying earlier, have an athlete's mentality.
I think in trading, you know, the losers far outweigh the winners, as often has been discussed. I think persistence is the biggest thing. Money management obviously is very, very important -- more important perhaps than anything else -- but the mindset that you're going to come back tomorrow and try it again. It's like a quarterback who is calling a play and it doesn't work but the next time, they call it again. If you trade a certain way, it's not going to work all the time, but you've got to come in the next day and do it again.
Connors:
And keep that consistency. Just keep doing the same thing, as long as...Pidto: It's very hard. I mean I can't tell you that I am anywhere near to mastering that.
Connors: It's the toughest part. It's very easy when things aren't working a couple of trades in a row, to start second-guessing it. Which usually happens right before it starts working again. That's part of the game. It sounds like this is still a process for you. This has been year after year of you getting closer to reaching your goal of getting to that point.
Pidto: You have to understand there have been some large setbacks along the way. (Laughs) In March of 1998, I went away on vacation and -- I'll never forget this -- I was with my brother-in-law, actually. Our families went to Colorado. I was short crude oil and heating oil, and OPEC came out and cut production over the weekend. So you know, I'm not a big trader but I mean Monday's market opens up and I'm down big.
Connors: That hurts.
Pidto: So to come back from something like that... And there have been a couple of things like that that have happened but that is by far the worst. I'm still at it, though. I'm still breathing here five or six years later.
Connors:
Let me end with one last question. The Yankees are playing well here but it's obvious to me the Red Sox are going to overtake them and go on to win the World Series, I'm sure you agree.Pidto: I think what the Yankees are doing right now, I don't think they can be beaten because you know...
Connors: Sorry, Bill, it looks like our time's up. Interview's over!
Pidto:
Thanks Larry, I've had fun.
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