Some conversations you just can’t script.
I sat down with Todd “Bubba” Horwitz — 47-year trading veteran, former OEX pit trader, and the guy who got banned from CNBC for calling Cramer an idiot on live TV — along with Mikey Z from Target Trading, and we just let it rip. No agenda. No teleprompter. Just three floor guys swapping war stories from an era of trading that will never exist again.
And trust me — these stories deliver.
Bubba started with $25,000 on the Chicago Board of Trade floor, traded 25,000 to 30,000 contracts a day, ate a $100,000 out-trade to keep a broker relationship alive, and once bolted from a barbershop — hair half-cut, manicure half-done — because Superior Oil halted trading while he was sitting on a monster position.
Here’s what we got into:
The floor was a different world. Brokers could front-run their own customers. Fistfights broke out over order flow. You picked your spot in the pit based on which broker had the best paper — and you took care of that broker no matter what. There were no computers tracking your position during the day. Your clearing firm found out where you stood the next morning, when they handed you a 50-page statement and asked, “Are you getting out, or am I getting you out?”
Why 95% of floor traders couldn’t make the transition. When the pits closed and screens took over, almost all of those profitable traders were done. The edge they’d built — reading the crowd, hearing panic in someone’s voice, catching the bid-offer spread — didn’t translate to a quiet room and a blinking cursor. Bubba breaks down exactly what was lost and how he reinvented himself.
The blow-off trade is still alive. Bubba’s signature move — fading capitulation when volume spikes and panic sets in — is the same instinct he honed in the pit, just executed differently now. We talked about how that played out with his recent calls, including nailing a face-ripping rally earlier this week.
Trading is the greatest franchise on earth. No employees. No inventory. No rent. Your only cost of doing business is your losses. We broke down why retail traders today have access to tools — prop firms, automated strategies, letter of direction programs — that let them build their own personal hedge funds in ways that weren’t possible even five years ago.
This one’s an hour of pure, unfiltered floor wisdom. Hit play and enjoy.
🔗 Connect with Bubba:
Until next time—trade smart, stay prepared, and together we will conquer these markets!
Ryan Bailey, VICI Trading Solutions.
