PREMIUM
Kevin Cook
Kevin Cook
Kevin studied philosophy and education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and wanted to become a teacher. Instead, he found his way to Chicago’s commodity exchanges in the mid-90s and discovered the world of futures and options. Standing next to pro options traders every day for two years was an incredible opportunity for him to learn the essential dynamics of probability, risk, and long-term trading success.
He used this knowledge to leave the trading floor and gain a spot as an electronic trader on a high-volume, currency arbitrage desk. As a high-frequency market maker for 9 years, Kevin was part of the ground-breaking team at the CME that provided deep liquidity to global banks and funds in all time zones in order to establish a solid link on Globex between currency futures and the underlying cash markets and he traded $50 to $150 million worth of currencies per day to do so. That puts the total mileage somewhere around $150 billion in foreign exchange during his tenure, equivalent to well over 1,000,000 futures contracts. He thinks it added 20 years to his age.
During that intense training ground amidst the titans of the interbank, Kevin also dove into a detailed study of trading psychology and systems and the predominating odds of failure for most new traders. He gathered and organized key principles on the mental and mathematical “edges” of skilled discretionary and systems traders and then began sharing the results of his research in 2003 through writing and free seminars, coaching futures and stock traders to think with an emotionally-detached “probability mind-set” about risk and reward by replicating the option trader’s approach to systematic rules execution and money management.
Kevin joined the Options News Network to build exciting options education for investors and traders, which brings him full circle to his goal of teaching. He believes options are more interesting and versatile and more fun than any other investment vehicle.
Kevin regularly appears on CNBC, CNN, and Bloomberg. He also performs analysis and special reports for “Options News” and is a host of “Options Physics,” where traders can learn the fundamental probability and risk mechanics of options trading in ways they won’t find anywhere else.
