‘I’ve Never Had A Real Job’ — ESPN’s (And TradingMarkets Member) Bill Pidto!
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.
|
line with my Ivy League degree in Hackensack, NJ.” |
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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You don’t know what’s going to happen. I like that…” |
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.