CONSPIRACY THEORY: WHY ERIC BOLLING IS GONE OR QUIT?

Well we’ve all been wondering where is Eric Bolling? I think there is a huge tell by his disappearance and the news about New York Mercantile Exchange (NMX) buyout news? Well the NYMEX Chairman Richard Schaeffer said the company is discussing a merger. Schaeffer said any offer for NYMEX would have to be at a “meaningful premium” to the company’s current share price. Meaningful huh…how meaning full. The stock closed at $126.06. (Disclosure I own shares). Well there are calls for $155 to $165. I think it’s reasonable. Well I say reasonable because that would make me a pretty penny. Anyways, the NMX is selling their building. They wants to be bought and announced negotiations. But why? Well to increase the bid price of course. Hype sells. Who are the bidders? The New York Stock Exchange Euronet (NYX) of course across the street but the hype will bring more people to the table to drive the price up. How do Eric play into this? Well he’s listed as a strategic advisor. Well it’s time to be strategic and he’s probably somewhat included in the intense negotiations so that’s why no one know? Conspiracy? I think not!

Eric Bolling Profile

City: New York
Exchange: NYMEX
Age: 43

What He Trades: Natural-gas futures are Bolling’s market of choice, though he got his start in crude oil. “If you think of the crude-oil pit as a $100-minimum table,” he explains, “then natural gas is the $1,000-minimum table. It’s hugely volatile.” The international nature of energy appeals to him. “Chicago has a lot of grain markets and agricultural pits where the markets are localized, but energy is global. Something can happen in Saudi Arabia that has ripple effects from Shanghai to Manhattan.” Bolling owns two seats on the NYMEX, two on the Comex and two on the NYBOT.

How He Trades: Bolling is down in the pits all day, every day. When trading ends, he monitors his positions electronically. Still, he remains a devotee of the cut and thrust of the floor: “When something happens in the market, they all go to open-outcry, because that’s where the volume is.”

Bolling represents a lot of that volume, claiming responsibility for as much as 5 percent of the action in the natural-gas pit. Six-foot-one and a former professional third baseman, he says the physical and mental edge that comes from competitive sports gives him an advantage. “When you’re on the field or on a court, there’s a process you go through in your mind that is similar to making a commodities trade or a pit trade. Not necessarily an upstairs, long-range hedge-fund manager’s trade. But in an instantaneous pit trade, athletes are very good.”

How He Got Started: In 1985, Bolling, drafted out of Rollins College by the Pittsburgh Pirates, was playing for their single-A affiliate in Bradenton, Florida, when a routine grounder came his way. “I picked up the ball, turned to throw and heard a pop in my shoulder,” he says. “That was it, the end of my career.” He started looking for other jobs. A Chicago native, he had seen the serious money to be made at the exchanges. Later that year, he found himself on the energy desk for Prudential-Bache in Boston.

“I realized that the people really making money were on the trading floor. So I did whatever it took to get down there.” He leased his first seat in 1987 and bought his first seat the next year.
Estimated income: $10 – $15 million