Robert J. Seifert

Mr. Seifert has been in the securities industry for more than 38 years. He began his career in the municipal bond market, where he held positions in marketing and trading. In 1980, he established Fixed Income Atlanta, his own broker dealer, which specialized in fixed-income municipal and government bonds.

When interest rates spiked in the early 1980s, more emphasis shifted to the hedging of long-term bonds. He employed the new financial future contracts that were traded at the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). He developed a trading model and formed Robert J. Seifert C.T.A., which managed both individual and pooled commodity trading accounts. During this period, he had two articles published in Barron’s and the Wall Street Journal dealing with risk and portfolio diversification.

Opportunities in the evolving derivative and future markets led him to the floor of the CBOT and CME in the fall of 1983. In 1985, he started a floor trading partnership, Futrex, which operated on the floors of the CME, CBOT, and the CBOE. While at Futrex, he served in many capacities with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). His positions included Vice-Chairman Eurodollar Options, and Options Chairman of the International Monetary Market (IMM).

He also served on many committees devoted to revising and designing option products. Mr. Seifert conducted educational seminars on behalf of the Exchange, and acted as a political lobbyist in Washington for the futures Industry.

In 1996, he formed Cat in the Hat Trading (CITHT) to deal in financial futures and options on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). The primary trade was the Eurodollar options market, the largest short-term interest-rate market in the world. His principal function at CITHT was to provide capital and install the strategy for the duration weighted-option positions that traded on the floor.

Currently, Mr. Seifert is an independent option trader and is a product manager with Ablesys Corporation, where he supplies intellectual properties for software models. In addition, he conducts trading seminars and has developed individual options-trading courses for many clients.

Mr. Seifert graduated from West Virginia University, where he holds B.S. in Economics.