Bill Lipschutz

Early Life and education

Lipschutz was born and raised in Farmingdale, New York. He earned good grades throughout junior high and high school. One of his favorite subjects was math. Lipschutz had an interest in tennis and became an avid tennis player.

Lipschutz attended Cornell University and earned a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from their Architectural Design program after five years. He simultaneously enrolled in business classes and earned an MBA in finance in 1982 from the Johnson School of Management, also at Cornell University.

Early career

While at Cornell University, Lipschutz inherited $12,000 worth of stock after his grandmother’s death. In his inheritance, there were over 100 different stocks in numerous locations. It cost Lipschutz a substantial sum in fees in order to liquidate and consolidate the risk capital into one location.

While attending school, he began investing the risk capital in his free time. He would spend hours in the library, researching and reading about the market. This research increased his interest in financial trading, and his portfolio was eventually worth close to $250,000. The success was, however, short-lived, as the risk capital was lost with one bad decision and a turn on the market. Lipschutz considered the loss a valuable learning experience to apply to any future investments. Through his college career, Lipschutz became more interested in the stock trading and continued to pursue it with success, while leaving his architectural degree behind.

During the time spent at Cornell, he met his wife, Lynnelle Jones, who was working for economist Henry Kaufman as a research assistant. Lipschutz interned for Kaufman and Salomon Brothers before graduating in 1982. He joined Salomon Brothers as a full-time employee in May 1982.

Career at Salomon Brothers

During a Salomon Brothers training program Lipschutz was asked to be a part of the newly formed Foreign Exchange (or forex trading or FX for short) Department. Salomon Brothers created a team from their traders and came up with a plan for learning currency trading.

The foreign exchange markets took off about the same time Salomon Brothers were starting in the market. He was considered to be amongst the top five of all forex traders worldwide. By 1985, Lipschutz was making $300 million per year for Salomon Brothers.

Lipschutz was the principal trader for Salomon Brothers’ proprietary foreign exchange account from 1984 until he left in June 1990. In 1988, he was appointed a Director of Salomon Brothers, heading the Global Foreign Exchange Options Group and the New York Foreign Exchange Trading Desk. In 1989 he was named the Managing Director and Global Head of Foreign Exchange.

Lipschutz participated in the development of both the exchange-traded and over-the-counter foreign exchange option markets. He has held a number of elected and appointed positions in the foreign exchange industry, including as a member of the Board of Governors of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, as vice chairman of the Foreign Exchange Options Committee of that exchange, as a member of the Ad Hoc Federal Reserve Option Committee, as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Chicago Board Options Exchange and as a Director of the Philadelphia Board of Trade.

Lipschutz left Salomon Brothers, briefly opting for early retirement. In 1990 Lipschutz went to work as the President and CEO for the North Tower Group, a subsidiary of the Merrill Lynch Corporation. Then in 1991 he founded Rowayton Capital Management, an asset and management firm where he was the President and CEO until 1995.

After Salomon Brothers: Hathersage Capital Management

In 1995 Lipschutz formed Hathersage Capital Management with classmates from Cornell. Hathersage Capital Management is a Global Macro manager that specializes in G10 currencies. Lipschutz has been the Principal and Director of Portfolio Management at Hathersage since the firm's founding.

Awards & recognition

Lipschutz was inducted into the Trader Monthly Hall of Fame in October 2006.

Lipschutz has been featured in two print books about market traders;