We were joined this week by Kris Abdelmessih, who spent most of his career as an options trader and now writes about the relationship between money, work and creativity in the Moontower blog and weekly newsletter. Our conversation covered topics that included:

• Becoming a derivatives and options trader straight out of college
• Defining the difference between trading and investing
• Identifying alpha – understanding your edge and capitalizing on it
• The business of trading
• Not just surviving but thriving during the Dotcom Crash
• Learning under the wings of Reggie Brown
• The high natural rate of attrition in options trading
• A portable skillset – from derivatives to the underlying
• The highly disruptive period of the early 2000s
• The trading pit as the home to misfits and ‘X-men’
• Speed as a quintessential skill
• How the ‘shale boom’ compressed volatility in natural gas
• Trading can be defined as ‘seeing the present clearly’
• Joining FinTwit to learn about the broader investment landscape
• And much more

This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day, hosted by Adam Butler, Mike Philbrick and Rodrigo Gordillo of ReSolve Global* and Richard Laterman of ReSolve Asset Management.

*ReSolve Global refers to ReSolve Asset Management SEZC (Cayman) which is registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a commodity trading advisor and commodity pool operator. This registration is administered through the National Futures Association (“NFA”). Further, ReSolve Global is a registered person with the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority.