Todd Federman writes his first book, Rhymes For Turbulent Times, a humorous look at our economic times in poetry. This venture follows a long career on Wall Street where Todd learned about the ups and downs of the marketplace.

After Todd earned his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1981, he joined investment powerhouse Goldman Sachs. He traded corporate bonds, specializing in the telephone and utility sectors.

In 1985, Todd moved to Drexel Burnham Lambert as a Senior Corporate Bond Trader, responsible for long-term investment-grade industrial bonds. Interested in the relationship between bonds and their equity counterpart, Todd developed a statistical arbitrage trading model focused on pairs trading of telephone stocks. Over time the model grew to include many industry groups. Todd managed this portfolio as an independent proprietary trading unit for the rest of his time at Drexel.

Following the “fall of Drexel” in 1990, Todd took his trading model to Donald Sussman at the hedge fund Paloma Partners. There he stayed for 16 years, managing a satellite office and trading his equity pairs strategy.

 

After this nice long run, it was time for Todd to explore some personal interests. Since leaving Paloma, he has become more involved in charitable work including serving on the Board of The American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science. Being politically interested, he also volunteered for the Obama campaign.

But, the lure of the market remains strong and Todd continues to evaluate the market as a private investor. As the economy continued to unravel, Todd felt inspired to take a creative approach and write some poetry. Putting the turmoil in verse seemed to have just the right cathartic effect. He circulated his first poem The La$t Word at Christmas among some friends and one suggested that he send it to a blog. That entry in The Wall Street Journal blog, The Wallet, turned into a page one feature story in the Wall Street Journal newspaper and on WSJ.com online.

The response encouraged Todd to continue writing. In fact, he was caught up in a whirlwind of enthusiasm. Over the next six weeks, morning and night, Todd continually wrote, converting economic news into poetry.  Upon reaching 50 poems, he decided to produce this collection, Rhymes For Turbulent Times. It seems like these poems have struck a chord.

 

Todd resides in Livingston, New Jersey with his wife Rhonda and their two children.