Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 12, 1995 TAG: 9502100033
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHLEEN WILSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Name. Address. Phone number.
Title?
There isn't one.
No clue that Jordan walks a financial tightrope for a living. Technically, he's what's known in the financial world as a commodities trading adviser.
But he'll tell you he's a ``risk freak.'' Jordan plays the futures market, which for more conservative investors is akin to bungee jumping or sky diving, just that his parachute is made of money.
Jordan's area is one of the most highly specialized in finance. He looks for markets to capitalize on. He spends his days looking all around the United States and the world for markets with inefficiencies. His computer helps him identify these areas.
He's what's known in the world of futures and commodities as a ``Mom'' - an acronym for manager of other commodities managers.
Or as he puts it, ``I identify highly talented people to go out there and make money.'' Right now, he oversees the trading of eight managers around the globe.
But mostly, Jordan describes himself as Roanoke's ``most ignored secret.''
That's because the local business community just doesn't understand what he does, Jordan and the handful of Roanoke-area people who've dealt with him say.
But Business Week apparently understands. Last September, the national magazine ranked Jordan's Blue Ridge Trading Limited as third among the leading U.S. managers of managed futures funds, based on its 1994 rate of return. That was in a year Business Week described as lackluster for commodity funds, pools and trading advisers.
These funds collectively are known as ``managed futures'' - similar to mutual funds except that they invest in such markets as interest rates and currencies, and grains and metals.
Jordan quietly did all this from from his home on Cornwallis Avenue.
Sitting at his desk in January wearing shorts, a T-shirt and sweat socks - and a great tan from spending Christmas in Jamaica - Jordan hangs up the phone.
``That's a lawyer friend of mine in town,'' he explains. ``And that will probably be the only call I get from anyone in Roanoke for weeks.''
When he first moved to Roanoke, he tried to get to know the business community, he says. The ``blue suits,'' he calls them.
``But they don't understand what I do,'' he says with a sigh. ``That's probably because I don't wear a suit.''
He walks around town dressed casually, wearing Birkenstock sandals.
``They think I don't really have a job,'' Jordan figures.
There are those who think that's a shame.
``Nobody takes him seriously,'' agrees Bart Wilner, owner and general manager of Entre Computer Center. When Jordan moved here, Wilner sold him a couple of computers, and the two became friends.
``Because he's so casual about how he dresses and feels he doesn't have to do lunch at the right places - like the Shenandoah Club - the business community just ignores him.
``Here's this man who is literally dealing with millions and millions of dollars every day, and no one knows enough to try to take advantage of what he knows and can do.''
For example, the Roanoke Symphony's board about three years ago asked him for advice about fund raising. Jordan says they all listened very politely, then conservatively told him of their fiduciary responsibility.
After that, he figured it wasn't worth his effort to put any more time into speaking to organizations that weren't going to take his advice seriously.
He feels he's been systematically excluded here by those he calls the ``provincial pooh-bahs.''
He moved here a little more than three years ago to enjoy the money he'd made and raise his two sons in a town with sidewalks, he says.
``It's called `cashing out' - you make your money and then go live and enjoy it,'' he explains.
Jordan, whose education includes the universities of Virginia, Chicago, Vienna, and Sophia in Tokyo, worked in Chicago with Refco, one of the world's largest commodities companies. It was the company where Hillary Rodham Clinton invested a controversial $1,000 in cattle futures. ``Yes, I was sitting right next to the guy who did that. A lot of people made a lot of money on that deal. Unfortunately, I was more prudent.''
Jordan and his family came here from Charlottesville, selling their farm to TV star Lee Majors. That might be a reason he isn't viewed as just any newcomer.
``People thought of him as the man who sold his farm to Lee Majors,'' says Wilner.
In fact, Jordan moved here because Charlottesville became a place too many others who were cashing out were going.
``He left there when Sissy Spacek, Jessica Lange and Sam Shepherd discovered it,'' says Wilner.
Jordan himself will tell you that if and when everyone discovers Roanoke is a great place to cash out, he'll be off to cash out elsewhere.
Asked to describe his personal wealth, Jordan pauses. ``Within local standards, I guess you could say I'm pretty wealthy.
``But by the standards of the people I do business with, I'm only modestly rich. No, those people are really rich.'' Jordan knows he'll never be part of what he calls ``the old boy network'' in Roanoke. And it doesn't seem to bother him.
He describes himself as a future-oriented person. ``I've always been a little ahead of my time.''
That can be lonesome, but he's accustomed to that. ``I guess I've always been a little peculiar. Even since I was a teen-ager.''
``People who work in his area are mavericks, in a way,'' explains Don Chance, professor of finance for the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech. ``It's very entrepreneurial. They'd rather not work for anyone else. And then they can measure their day at the end by how well the market did and how well they invested.
``It's capitalism in its purest form. You get up, and it's just you against the market. At the end of the day, you can't complain you didn't get your report finished because the guy in the office next door didn't get his information to you on time.''
Jordan's certainly not going to put on a dark suit just to fit in with these provincial pooh-bahs.
``You know, studies show that wearing a dark suit can substantially retard creativity and productivity,'' he says with a smirk.
Besides, he points out, you don't get paid for what you look like.
So just how does he survive socially in Roanoke?
``I just don't talk business with my neighbors,'' he says.
Instead, he's created a network of cronies all his own. He keeps in touch with them daily on the phone and via the computer in his office. They meet at conferences and lunches all over the United States and the world.
Jordan's phone calls come from London, Kuwait and Korea. One of his managers is in the Cayman Islands trying to set up something big. Another is in Florida.
Being mentioned in Business Week is no big deal to him. In his strange world of nontraditional finance, Jordan says he'd be happy managing the money of just a handful of people who would give him the chance to show them what he can do. Most of what he makes, Jordan admits, is through investments he makes for a few very wealthy people who are willing to give him their money to play the market with.
Because he doesn't actively solicit business, and deals with clients whose net worths are over $2 million, he is exempt from Securities and Exchange Commission regulations.
``I love what I do,'' says Jordan, 44. ``I don't think of it as work. It's my hobby and my fun, too.''
Jordan's face lights up when he talks about how he made a killing in coffee futures one day.
``It was just poking along doing nothing, and then there was this monster signal,'' he recalls. ``I put a double position on it and made 14 percent in less than 40 seconds.''
He says his young children think they've got a ``nerd techno weenie'' for a dad.
The Standard & Poor's 500 futures ``has some awesome inefficiencies. Big inefficiencies can mean big profits,'' he says.
He started out with one computer trading in two markets. Today, he has seven computers and plays his game in 60 to 70 markets worldwide.
Jordan claims to be the first American to trade futures contracts in Hong Kong.
Soon, he'll trade the same in Japan and later in South Korea.
His Japanese plan? Red soybeans. Raw silk futures. Dried silk cocoons.
``The beauty of this is, what does the price of dried silk cocoons have to do with the U.S. stock market? That's what reduces the risk.''
He's fascinated by these strange and unrelated things he can trade.
Not only that, but Jordan figures he'll be able to stick $100 million in and run it up to about $200 million by the end of the year.
``Basically, I take a lot of risk in a few areas. The trick is that the risk needs to be in unrelated markets - both long and short - so I can control volatility.''
He describes the investment market as one money factory with three shifts: the American, the Asian and the European.
``Since it runs 24 hours a day, the business lends itself to being an at-home computer process.''
Jordan admits it is a brutal business, both emotionally and professionally. ``Basically, I'm trying to outsmart a thousand other guys every day.''
He tries to get others to play his game. Most understand that to play the futures game, you have to be prepared to lose a certain amount. But most don't have the iron gut for it.
Diversity is the key to remaining in control. ``When I start adding different activities, the risk can drop 30 percent.
``I just want to make money. I really don't care about the risk.''
Keywords:
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by CNB