Our mission: To utilize technology to carry on the Chicago tradition of experienced traders training and mentoring the next generation.
Chicago is the birthplace of futures and options trading and is the center of the modern alternative investment industry. Our instructors worked their way up in the business the hard way, working on the floor as runners, phone clerks, pit clerks, floor brokers and floor managers and advancing to positions as brokers and traders. This irreplaceable experience was paramount to our success. Many successful traders did not have a college degree, but they did have experience in the business as well as assistance from a mentor.
With the shift from floor trading to computerized trading, the time honored tradition of working your way up in the business is rapidly coming to a close. As a result, new traders are entering the markets with no background in the complex world of futures and options trading, and no knowledge of the fundamentals of the market place or of trading itself. The failure rate among the new generation of unprepared electronic traders is very high.
The Chicago School is designed to give you the tools for success. Using our exceptional experience and the current technology, we will help to train, mentor and prepare the next generation of traders in the Chicago tradition.
William M. Gruzynski, CAIA Futures Instructor and Head Futures Mentor
Bill earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and Chemistry from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb Illinois. He has been actively involved in the futures industry since 1974.
Bill began his futures industry career at the Chicago Board of Trade as a runner and then a grain analyst. He later moved to Rosenthal Collins LLC and ran the firm's Chicago Mercantile Exchange operation until 1980, when he became an independent trader and broker.
Bill held a membership on the International Monetary Market, a division of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) where he traded in gold, T-Bills, Eurodollars and Foreign Currencies. He later held a membership on the Index and Options Market (IOM), a division of the CME, trading in the S&P 500 Stock Index Futures and various commodity options markets. Bill executed trades on behalf of some of the largest hedge funds, commodity trading advisors, and investment institutions in the world.
Bill has served on numerous Exchange committees, including: arbitration, business conduct, floor practices, IOM new products, commodity trade reconstruction, pit oversight, as well as various pit committees, including Vice-Chairman of the S&P 500 pit committee and IOM Divisional Vice-Chairman. Bill also served as a director of the Commodity Futures Political Fund.
Bill is the founder of the Emerald Group of Companies which specializes in the financial sector, and includes Emerald Market Systems, a company delivering technological innovations for the financial industry, Emerald Asset Management, and Emerald Strategies LLC that concentrate on alternative investment solutions including hedge funds and managed futures programs for high net worth individuals and institutional investors.
Bill is a Chartered Alternative Investment AnalystSM (CAIASM) a professional designation exclusively for alternative investment specialists. He is a member of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst AssociationSM, which established the industry’s first and only specialized educational standards covering real estate, private equity, commodities, hedge funds and managed futures.
Bill is also a senior partner with Hillcrest Partners, a commodity futures and options consulting firm, which consults with clients, regarding their entry into the commodity futures and options markets. Bill also designs and implements commodities and securities markets technical trading systems.
Bill is a member of the Board of Advisors and a lecturer and instructor in the Financial Markets and Trading Program at the Illinois Institute of Technology's Stuart School of Business.
Dan Keegan, Options Instructor and Head Options Mentor
Dan earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Marquette University College of Business Administration, Milwaukee Wisconsin.
Dan started out in the options business in 1978 and worked his way up in the Chicago tradition. Dan spent five years as a runner, phone clerk, and floor broker for A.G. Becker on the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). He then spent twenty years as an independent market maker on the floor of the CBOE.
Dan has also traded at the Chicago Board of Trade in Treasury Bond Futures and options on soybean oil futures.
Dan is an advisor for I2I Analytics, LLC, advising executives with concentrated stock positions on using options to diversify their portfolios and to minimize their overall risk. He also works with money managers to develop options overlay strategies for their client’s portfolios.
Dan is a founder and current President of the Chicago Floor Traders Alumni Association.
Dan has been a guest lecturer at Marquette University in Dr. David Krause’s finance class in the basics of options and in Dr. George Kutner’s derivative class in advanced options trading.
P.J. McCarthy, Managing Partner and Video Director
P.J. McCarthy earned a degree in Journalism and Economics from the University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio.
P.J. started his career in the futures industry in 1978 and worked his way up to becoming a futures trader in the Chicago tradition. He worked on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) as an employee of Rosenthal and Company, a large clearing firm. He worked his way up in the business as a phone clerk, assistant floor manager and eventually as floor manager for Rosenthal.
In 1982 P.J. became one of the original members of the Index and Options Market of the CME. He was in the pit on the first day of trading of the Standard and Poor’s 500 Contract, one of the most successful future contracts ever introduced, and spent the next seven years as an independent floor trader, trading exclusively for his own personal account.
P.J. then became President of Chicago Video, Inc., a video production company which produced corporate and educational videos.
In 1997 P.J. returned to the futures industry as an independent trader in the Dow Futures pit at the Chicago Board of Trade. He was also in the pit on the first day of trading for the Dow Futures Contract and experienced first hand the transition from open outcry to computerized trading.
In 2006 he joined Emerald Strategies LLC as a registered Associated Person. Emerald Strategies concentrates on alternative investment solutions including hedge fund and managed futures programs for high net worth individuals and institutional investors.
Judith Joyce Shanahan, Consultant
Judith Joyce Shanahan is a graduate of De Paul University, Chicago, Illinois where she earned her BA, in English and Philosophy, her Juris Doctor from the College of Law, and Certificates in Arbitration and Mediation from its Alternative Dispute Resolution Center.
For five years Judith was a trial attorney with the Securities and Exchange Commission, assigned to the Broker Dealer Regulation Branch. In addition to conducting investigations of alleged violations of the federal securities laws, she litigated both administrative and injunctive actions.
For six years Judith was District Counsel for District No. 8 of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), the self-regulatory body for the securities industry created under the federal securities laws. Judith then became Regional Counsel investigating, developing and presenting disciplinary cases for the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North and South Dakota and Wisconsin. In addition to litigation Judith acted as advisor to other Districts across the country counseling both the staff and member firms on federal and state securities laws and well as on issues of ethical conduct. In July 2007 the NASD and the regulatory, enforcement and arbitration functions of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) were consolidated through the creation of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).
After eight years as Regional Counsel, Judith joined a 40-man Chicago law firm specializing in business representation. For seven years and as a partner in the Corporate Department she counseled the securities departments of national banks, registered broker dealers and registered investment advisors, She served as outside investment counsel to pension funds, and was an appointee to the Illinois Secretary of State's Securities Law Advisory Counsel. Judith was a frequent speaker on securities and pension matters.