Education is a Mission

Vol #8 - September 25th, 2020

This week we pushed the Big Red Button, and it was only the second most exciting news of the week.

While we’re thrilled to move to production, and have our services fully deployed on the public website (cheap plug - you can sign up here), bringing on Ian Matty as our Director of Education takes the cake.

Ian has a long history in both the derivatives industry and education space. He is a former AMEX specialist, NYMEX crude trader, and prop trading risk manager for VIX and special situations. After trading, he built the Makerspace program from scratch in Mountain Lakes NJ. Here he used robotics to demonstrate to students of all ages the synergies between creativity and technology.

I had the pleasure of working with Ian early in my career as I learned about the wide world of options, and I can’t imagine anyone better for this role. Not only does Ian have an intuitive understanding of complex topics, he truly enjoys teaching them. The same passion I saw as he opined about the dark corners of the stock loan market, still runs deep as the 3-D printer whirs in the background for the next Makerspace project.

Harvested Financial is both an options shop and a technology firm. But the way we bring derivatives to everyone, is through education. Our mission is Promethean - to deliver powerful solutions that help individual investors diversify and amplify their holdings. It takes both insight and strong communication to do that.

Ian will be working with us to develop a curriculum, programming, and content surrounding options strategies. He’ll be starting conversations with investors and clients to help make options more approachable. We want to educate current and prospective clients about how Harvested Financial can help them leverage the power of options for their portfolios.

We’re confident in the potential of options strategies, but our work isn’t done until all of our clients are equally confident in how their money is allocated. Options education is about setting appropriate expectations for what can be achieved, and what kind of risk it takes to get there. It’s about pulling back the curtain on complexity, and presenting opportunities that align with individual visions.

Ian has already taught me a lot in my options career, and I’m excited for everyone to meet him.

Mark Phillips
CEO

What clients are asking us:

• What does the Big Red Button mean for me?

  • This week we pushed “the Big Red Button” and officially moved our application out of beta and into production. This means that anyone can go to our website and sign up to get access to options strategies today.

• Is there still space in the webinar?

  • There sure is! We’d love to have you join us for an in depth discussion of how Harvested Financial delivers Strategy Execution as a Service help diversify your portfolio with options strategies.

  • Click here to register today.

• How do I know if I have options experience?

  • You guessed it, we have a blog about this! Investment experience is a difficult thing to measure, but many people have far more than they realize. We’re faced with financial decisions throughout our lives, and many of those involve options like decisions. Everything from car leases to home insurance are really just forms of options.

Happy Friday

The Board of Trade building is an iconic fixture in the Chicago Loop.

The famed exchange has existed on this site since 1885, though the original building was abandoned in the late 1920s as it became architecturally unstable. The current structure was built in 1930 to house the Chicago Board of Trade, which is now part of the CME group. It lasted as the tallest building in Chicago until the Daley Center was built in 1965.

The trading floors installed there were the largest of their time, covering 19,000 square feet. There were 2,700 miles of telephone and telegraph wires installed under the main floors.

The building is renowned for its art deco style and sculptural stone carvings. Details abound in the building with polished black and white marble floors, a three story lobby, and elaborate trim in the hallways. Ornate carvings on the facade depict the trading activities within. The same company that built the Brooklyn Bridge produced the cables for the elevators here. It was designated a National Historic Building in 1978.

The most prominent fixture is the aluminum statue of Ceres that sits atop the building. Chosen for the connection to the commodities trade, the goddess of agriculture and fertility holds a sheaf of wheat in her left hand, and a bag of corn in her right hand.

Crafted by sculptor John H. Storrs, she stands 45 stories above LaSalle street, measures 31 feet tall, and weighs over 6,500 pounds. Storrs was quoted at the time as saying this was “one of the most commanding positions for a statue to be found in America.”

What Ceres doesn’t have, is a face. While Storrs used a real life model, these details never made it to the final design. Some say it was because it fit with the Art Deco style, but the reality is that Storrs couldn’t imagine that any other building would be built as tall, so there was no need to include those.