Formerly a product manager for a meat-packing firm, Lucien Thomas Baldwin III started trading with $20,000 in 1982. With the US experiencing high inflation in the early 1980s treasury bonds became popular with both hedgers and speculators resulting in high trading volume. T-Bond Futures became Baldwin ‘s favourite instrument to trade, and he emerged as one of the most important players in that pit at the CBOT. He has been known to trade as many as 60,000 contracts a day with a total face value of $6 billion. He is recognised by the acronym “BAL” on his member badge.