Chicago Options Associates, What’s the story? Options

[Peter Damian]

In 1994 Wales left the university of Alabama and took a job at Chicago Options Associates, as Research Director. He left in 1996. I am still puzzled how he made enough money so as not to work again, having worked there less than two years, in a research capacity (rather than a trader).

What happened to Chicago Options Associates? The CEO was Michael Davis, who in that period was the subject of a lawsuit referenced here

http://www.state.il.us/court/opinions/appe...tml/1041110.htm
http://www.state.il.us/court/opinions/supr.../may/102578.pdf

I haven’t time to follow the details of the case yet, but it seems Davis was successfully sued for a large sum of money (then), nearly $1m, and tried by various means to avoid payment. Does anyone know the full story? I see Greg has followed this one in the past.

[EricBarbour]

The irritating part of all this is that most of it happened before the public Internet became popular, so there's very little about COA and the Dowling-Davis dispute online.

Plus, there's an Irish TV personality and an American football player also named Brian Dowling. Arrgh.

See if you can find out the name of Dowling's legal representation. I can help by purchasing the Findlaw case if needed.

I'm looking on Justia for "Davis v. Dowling", there are multiple documents.
The representatives were Robbins Salomon & Patt, Tracy E. Stevenson appears to be Dowling's attorney.

I also found this. Greg's right, the courts keep upholding that "Florida homesteading" rule that allows the hiding of assets in a primary home in Florida--even federal courts can't touch it.

This post has been edited by EricBarbour:

[Kelly Martin]

Greg's right, the courts keep upholding that "Florida homesteading" rule that allows the hiding of assets in a primary home in Florida--even federal courts can't touch it.

Federal bankruptcy code explicitly states that if a state has an exemption-from-execution statute, that statute overrides the federal one for petitions filed against a debtor in that state. Florida offers a nearly unlimited homestead exception (certainly the broadest in the country), so if you're facing a large judgment just move to Florida and sink all your cash and assets into your home and whoever is after you can't get a dime.

Someone close to Jimmy once told me that Jimmy was completely useless as an option trader; his inherent fearfulness and risk-aversion made him almost useless as he was (and still is!) almost completely unwilling to take risks, and obviously anyone who knows anything about the options market knows that there's no such thing as an absolutely sure thing. It's quite certain that he never made that much money in the options business, but was fairly useful to Michael Davis and Tim Shell as a front man to pitch their various side gambits in the overheated Web 1.0 boom of the late 90s, including Bomis. Bomis was originally basically an underpants gnome venture with a vacuous business plan and pointless but spiffy-sounding mission statement existing solely for the purpose of getting VC funding, buzz, and an eventual buyout, which was the way to quick riches in those days if you were a good sleazer. And, as we all know, Jimmy is an excellent sleazer; even so, he wasn't able to flip Bomis for his friends Michael and Tim, and they foundered about for various ways to keep the company in cashflow, with ideas that included the infamous Bomis Babes and, of course, Nupedia and Wikipedia.

I am fairly certain that Nupedia originally gave credit to both ODP and Everything/Everything2 at first as inspiration, but I rather well doubt you'll see Jimmy acknowledge the influence of either of those projects today. The only credit which is ever given is to Ward Cunningham for the "wiki" concept; the idea of a web encyclopedia is one that Jimmy tends to pretend is his originally.