Trader Monthly fills business niche

Two-year-old Trader Monthly magazine is profiled in the Friday New York Times by reporter Michael Schmidt, who calls it a cross between Institutional Investor and CQ.

Schmidt writes, “The money they make was the subject of the magazine’s first issue in the fall of 2004, when it published a list of what it said were the top 100 traders, and their estimated income, an article that won it immediate attention on Wall Street.

“Trader Monthly has since made the list an annual feature in its April-May issue.

“[Editor Randall] Lane recruited Robert LaFranco, who worked with him on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people, to work with Rich Blake, a former institutional investor, to head a group of editors and writers that track traders all year.

“‘Last year, certain energy traders were doing great and Katrina wiped them out or made them big,’ Mr. Blake said.

“The magazine is widely read at Corinthian Partners, a private investment bank and securities broker in Manhattan, said Joe Bruno, a 25-year-old equities and bond trader there. Mr. Bruno says he reads it for entertainment.”

Read more here.