INTERVIEW
From Treating Cows To Trading Cattle: Eyewitness To History
John Clayburg
John Clayburg is a farmer (corn, soybeans, and cattle), and he also trades. That's not much of a surprise. But he's also a veterinarian, which is unusual. Not only that, he's also a system developer. So how does a veterinarian go from treating puppies and kittens to trading to systems development? The answer, of course, is practice, practice, practice.
Clayburg has been involved in trading and systems development for more than 20 years. He is author and developer of Parallel User Function Technology, a unique self-adaptive trading software platform that gives systems and indicators uncommon resilience. He recently wrote a book on his technique on four-step trading, published by John Wiley & Sons.
He has spoken at several system development and trading seminars from New York to Los Angeles. He also works with clients from around the world in the development and implementation of self-adaptive trading systems and indicators. He was in New York on September 11, meeting with a client in the financial district, when he looked up and saw something that most of the rest of us saw only on our televisions. Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan spoke to Clayburg via telephone on September 28, 2001.
"I didn't find computerizing trading systems to be very difficult; in fact, I thought it was common sense."
How did you get started in trading?
I get asked that a lot. I graduated from Iowa State University in 1971, and practiced veterinary medicine until 1985, when inflation rates and the farm crisis virtually removed most of the livestock from our area. At that point, my wife and I, with our five children, decided to remain on our farm rather than move to the cities. I practiced a little veterinary medicine on the side, but mainly we operated our farm, which has been in my family for more than a hundred years. In fact, we live in the house my grandfather built in the Depression.
During that experience we obviously needed to market corn, soybeans, and cattle. In doing this I developed an interest in the commodity markets and an interest in trading. I had been studying charts since the early 1980s, and eventually gravitated toward technical analysis, both on a daily and intraday basis.
When did your interest in developing systems start?
I always had an interest in graphs and charts. My interest in developing systems started when Bill Brower, who's one of the best programmers in TradeStation, automated a system for me. I studied the system code, worked through the logic, and decided to take up the challenge of writing my own systems and indicators. I got hold of a copy of TradeStation, read the manuals, began experimenting with EasyLanguage code, and eventually progressed to the automation of my own trading ideas, as well as custom programming for other traders, which I still do today. I've never taken a computer programming course, but I didn't find computerizing trading systems to be very difficult; in fact, I thought it was common sense. There's nothing magical about it; it's just a matter of one thing leading to another, such as the if/then statements, which lead to a certain conclusion, in turn leading you to take a specific action. It's not that complicated.
You were in New York on September 11. Can you tell us something about your experiences that day?
I was in New York to do some custom programming for a major client in the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), and also to visit with other firms who were trading my systems in the World Trade Center.
Where were you when the attacks on the World Trade Center took place?
When the first plane hit, I was in the cafeteria in the NYMEX building. I felt the windows shake and saw the smoke pouring from the top of the north tower. I went outside to try to call my wife, because she knew I was in that area, and I knew she'd know what was going on. I was standing outside the NYMEX building, watching the north tower burn and trying to use a cell phone, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye.
So you saw -
I looked up and actually saw the second airliner approach and crash into the south tower, just two blocks from where I was standing. Several people have asked me what my reaction was, but I honestly don't have the answer to that question yet. It was such a shock, such a horrible, terrifying event. You hear the word terrorist mentioned so often, and all I can say is that's the right word, because it terrified me. I think it's difficult for someone who wasn't there to imagine what it was like.
What did you do after the second plane hit?
There was so much going on, so many people, and when you're in a situation like that you just don't know what to do. I made my way over to the Hudson River and walked north, thinking that as a last resort the river would provide at least some protection, should another attack result in a fireball similar to the one I had just seen erupt from the south tower. I was prepared to actually jump into the river if necessary. Everyone was basically in a survival mode.
When the first tower collapsed, everybody thought that another airplane had hit a third building. One of the Air Force fighters flew over the area just as the tower collapsed. The sound of the jet engine followed by the deafening sound of the tower collapsing led most people in the area to assume that another attack had taken out the American Express building. At the time, we did not know that there were fighter planes overhead. When you hear a fighter plane scream over you at low altitude, right after experiencing what we had just witnessed firsthand, the first thing that goes through your mind is that there's going to be another attack.
It was the most incredible thing. There was just so much going through
everybody's minds. We've all got stories.
...Continued in the December 2001 issue of Technical Analysis of STOCKS & COMMODITIES
Excerpted from an article originally published in the December 2001 issue of Technical Analysis of STOCKS & COMMODITIES magazine. All rights reserved. © Copyright 2001, Technical Analysis, Inc.