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Sometime in the early 1970s, a young Rick Rieder sat in his elementary school cafeteria, not eating. Instead, he stared at his lunch money\u2014a quarter\u2014and weighed the probability of an Oakland Raiders victory. He would obsess over microdata, like how the football team played on turf versus grass, searching for a marginal edge that would turn his 25 cents into 50. Then, he\u2019d bet. When he lost, he went hungry, he told podcaster and author William Green.<\/p>\n
That hunger never really went away. He told Green he \u201cgets grumpy during bull markets,\u201d and prefers when the market loses its nerve. Now chief investment officer for fixed income at BlackRock, Rieder has what he admits is a \u201cmaniacal\u201d obsession with data that helps him to pick through the wreckage, find the arbitrage, or get out early. \u201cThe whole gig,\u201d he said, is managing risk well enough to know when it is time to leave.<\/p>\n
In the last week, Rieder has surged on prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, overtaking institutional favorites like the \u201cTwo Kevins\u201d (Hassett and Warsh) to become a leading contender to replace Jerome Powell as the next chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n
His career has been a masterclass in institutional survival. In July 1987, a 25-year-old Rieder joined former brokerage E.F. Hutton just months before \u201cBlack Monday\u201d sent the markets plunging 22% in a single day, forcing the 80-year-old firm into a fire-sale merger with Lehman Brothers. He survived the transition\u2014by his own telling, due to a \u201clucky\u201d sudden opening\u2014and spent nearly two decades at Lehman.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He departed in May 2008, narrowly before Lehman collapsed into the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, to found his own firm, R3 Capital. When BlackRock CEO Larry Fink acquired R3 a year later, he installed Rieder at the helm of what would become the largest investment platform in the world, making him a \u201csuper investor\u201d managing $2.3 trillion dollars in global bond markets, a sum larger than the annual GDP of most countries in the world.<\/p>\n
Through the implosions of these two august institutions, Rieder never lost his cool, former colleagues say. Josh Tarnow, a former BlackRock Managing Director who followed Rieder from Lehman to BlackRock and has watched him \u201cdaily in conflict\u201d for three decades, attested to Rieder\u2019s ability to hone in when it mattered.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is very good at accessing his resources, and he is incredibly calm,\u201d Tarnow told Fortune<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0That temperament is why Tarnow and other longtime colleagues describe Rieder as \u201cmade for\u201d what may be the riskiest job in the world: managing the U.S. economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n His momentum on Polymarket has surprised the economic establishment. Rieder hasn\u2019t worked at the Fed before, unlike the other main contenders. Stephen Moore, a former advisor to President Donald Trump, telling Fortune<\/em> the candidacy a \u201ccurveball.\u201d He added he didn\u2019t know much about the Wall Street candidate.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI should probably be studying up on him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n But those who have watched Rieder since his early days at Lehman are less surprised. Several of his old colleagues told Fortune<\/em> that the Fed is a natural next challenge for a man who \u201clives for the markets.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially over the last five years\u2014and maybe over the last 10, 20 years\u2014there\u2019s been an argument in the market that the Fed tends to be late, and that they don\u2019t like looking forward,\u201d a former colleague who worked with Rieder at BlackRock, said. \u201cAnd so I think Rick will do a great job bridging the gap between a forward-looking approach\u2014everything about his job today is to look forward and project and invest for the future\u2014as opposed to looking backwards.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Green, having interviewed Rieder years ago, said he was surprised that markets underestimated the bond trader for so long. He fits Trump\u2019s model of \u201ccentral casting\u201d\u2013hiring people who look <\/em>the part\u2013extrodinarily well, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s something about a powerful man, with a lot of money under his control who\u2019s so clearly a winner, I think is very seductive to [the President],\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n Rieder\u2019s arc, in retrospect, could look inevitable. It wasn\u2019t. Before he was managing crises for others, he had to work his way out of his own. In high school, Rieder was not just a \u201cmediocre\u201d student, but what he describes as completely \u201cmotivationally challenged\u201d and \u201cdirectionless,\u201d he told podcaster Jon Schultz. While he struggled with liberal arts subjects like history, English literature, and philosophy, which \u201cdidn\u2019t sink in,\u201d he did display a specific aptitude: he excelled in typing and accounting, finding the latter logical and \u201cintuitive,\u201d he told Green. Despite this spark, he admits he was a \u201cgym rat\u201d who spent most of his time hanging out and watching movies rather than studying.<\/p>\n The \u201ccatalyzing event,\u201d as Rieder calls it, occurred while sitting on a rock, on a golf course behind his parents\u2019 house, in Scarsdale. After receiving a set of dismal grades during his freshman year at Hobart College, which placed him on \u201csocial and academic probation,\u201d Rieder sat on that rock for four hours, terrified by the thought of his father\u2019s reaction. His father was an entrepreneur who ran an office products company called American Unifax. Rieder had watched his father work relentlessly to keep his typewriter ribbon and correction fluid business alive, even as computer technology rendered the products \u201cquickly antiquated\u201d and put the family through tough times, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Paralyzed by that contrast with his own trajectory, Rieder realized he had gained weight, was drinking too much beer, and \u201cgoing nowhere,\u201d he told Green. He credits his roommate for reinforcing the idea that they had to \u201cmove on\u201d from their lifestyle of watching movies and hanging out in the gym. He overhauled his life, and the pair transferred from Hobart to Emory University. He found a curriculum that mirrored his internal wiring: business. Once he began taking finance, marketing, and management classes, Rieder said he felt \u201cthe ball start rolling downhill\u201d; he transformed from being a near-dropout on probation to an award-winning finance student, ultimately finishing third in his class (though he notes in interviews that his wife, whom he met at Emory, finished first).\u00a0<\/p>\n The ball rolled down the hill, and into the abyss of obsession. Rieder, it seems, does everything at either 100% or at 0%.\u00a0<\/p>\n At Wharton, where he earned his MBA, Rieder recalls a visiting executive from the Golden Nugget casino explaining how casinos really make money. Rieder raised his hand and said it was because the odds favored the house. The executive corrected him. Casinos win, he said, because gamblers arrive with $200\u2014and when they lose it, they\u2019re forced to leave. The house, by contrast, has infinite liquidity and time.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I thought, gosh, when you oscillate, you hit the down 200, you leave,\u201d Rieder told Green. \u201cSo almost, statistically, you\u2019re always going to hit the down 200 if you stay there long enough. It just emblazoned in my mind the philosophy around the random walk alongside of a trend, and just making sure you\u2019re being thoughtful about optimizing it versus being on the wrong side of it.\u201d<\/p>\n That realization, that survival is a matter of staying in the game long enough to let the trend play itself out, transformed Rieder\u2019s life. It wasn\u2019t as simple as adopting a work ethic. He engineered a lifestyle designed to prevent ever hitting his own \u201cdown 200\u201d moment, a state of being that his colleagues find both impressive and bewildering.<\/p>\n Rieder \u201cdoesn\u2019t sleep,\u201d Tarnow said. Or rather, he sleeps a maximum of four hours a night. Colleagues said you can expect emails from him as early as 3 a.m. or as late as 11 p.m. However early they came to the office, Rieder was always earlier, and no matter how late they stayed, Rieder stayed later, they said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s the hardest worker in the room,\u201d two former colleagues said. His house in Florida is covered with massive flat-screen TVs set to markets. He checks Apple\u2019s earnings reports on vacation. And during the Green interview, he even requested permission to execute a trade because he \u201ccan\u2019t sit still\u201d while the bond yield curve moves. The effort comes from a distinct passion, his colleagues said, but Rieder has also said it comes from an acute anxiety.<\/p>\n Rieder told Green that he tracked his biometric data with the Whoop ring, and found that his stress levels peaked at 11:30 p.m., the moment he was forced to disconnect and sleep despite Asian markets being open. They plummet at 3:45 a.m., the moment he finally gets to wake up and grab his phone.<\/p>\n \u201cI hate the feeling of not being in control while sleeping,\u201d he told Green. He only relaxes once he can see the markets moving.<\/p>\n Trading fixed income is a distinctly different game than trading stocks. In the stock market, traders typically hunt for the upside, trying to find the next big thing that they can ride to the moon. Bond traders like Rieder, by contrast, are constantly staring down the cliff of what could go wrong. For Rieder, managing $2.7 trillion in fixed income means overseeing a massive sea of debt that is constantly under threat from inflation, rising interest rates, and other geopolitical \u201cexogenous\u201d events. There are pressures and risks you cannot prepare for, but you just have to learn how to \u201cmake a little bit of money a lot of times,\u201d one of his former colleagues said. The way to win out over decades\u2014often beating benchmark indexes\u2014is just to ensure that you are always hedged enough, and have enough liquidity, to never hit the statistical \u201cdown 200\u201d that forces you to leave.<\/p>\n How do you measure success in that kind of game? Rieder has said he doesn\u2019t feel successful. \u201cI still feel like I\u2019m going to get fired every day,\u201d he told Green.<\/p>\n To the average person, Rieder\u2019s work style sounds crazy. But to fellow finance people, it\u2019s magnetic. Since Lehman, Rieder has accumulated a distinct group of 42 people who followed him from Lehman to B3 to BlackRock, endlessly loyal to their boss, because they knew when push came to shove, they\u2019d never lose because they didn\u2019t try hard enough, his former colleagues said.<\/p>\n \u201cRick was able to find a good balance between being super-competitive and very demanding, while also trying to take great care of the people that were working alongside of him,\u201d a colleague who worked with him at Lehman and BlackRock said. He understands if people don\u2019t share his same lifestyle aspirations, and during particularly tough weekends, he was known to buy new tech gadgets to share with the team like the Meta sunglasses where you could listen to music while playing sports, a former colleague said. Another colleague said that after a rough year early on in his career, Rieder bought him a \u201cbrightly colored tie\u201d as a fun gift.\u00a0<\/p>\n He also, Tarnow said, took time to help his people when the company was transitioning; finding the right opportunities here and there for others.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a guy that\u2019s always worried about people more than himself,\u201d Tarnow said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ultimately, the constant assessment of what could go wrong has made Rieder a distinctly humble figure in an industry often defined by ego. Every colleague and partner interviewed by Fortune<\/em> used the word \u201chumility\u201d to describe him.\u00a0 In high-stakes environments, like meetings with powerful CEOs or angry clients, Rieder is known as a listener rather than a talker. \u201cHe holds the room because he is a very good listener; he entertains different opinions,\u201d Tarnow said. \u201cHe\u2019s a seeker of truth. This is a guy that is doing the best he can to get to the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n But even in lower-stakes environments, he has the same attitude. He takes on multiple charitable endeavors.\u00a0<\/p>\n Paul Bambrick-Santoyo, who leads Uncommon Schools, the Newark charter school system that Rieder has invested in and sat on the board for 20 years, noted that most people at the school would never recognize how influential he is in the global economy because of how quietly he carries himself. \u201cThere\u2019s a kindness and a gentleness to him that we get to see every day in the work he does with us,\u201d he told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cHe has an incredible sense of service and never takes credit for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Shawn Shivalkar, who co-founded a popular alternative investment club at Emory University under Rieder\u2019s guidance, recalls a similarly disarming presence during their first meeting at BlackRock. Sitting in an office filled with messy papers and massive screens displaying markets moving, Shivalkar found a man who was \u201csuper engaged\u201d but completely unpretentious.<\/p>\n \u201cHe just had all his screens up, and he was just asking us questions,\u201d Shivalkar told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cAnd he was bouncing a basketball up over his head, just kind of tossing it up in the air and catching it. It wasn\u2019t like a, \u2018Alright, I\u2019m here to trick you with a bunch of twisty questions\u2019 kind of meeting. It was a very productive and respectful dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n What does this all mean in terms of his fitness for Fed chairman? Well, for his colleagues, it seems obvious that he is the best fit for the role: \u201cno one\u2019s going to care more or have more passion for doing the job,\u201d one former colleague said. No one will outwork him, or have more of a will to the truth.\u00a0<\/p>\n But that assumes, of course, that Rieder can stay motivated without the constant, short-term pressure of the markets. One of his former colleagues was surprised that Rieder would want the role, given how staid the position is and how he would have to survive the browbeating of politics for credibility instead of operating on his own logic. Can a man who engineered in his biological hardwiring to be anxious when markets close, whose mantra, according to his old colleagues, was that \u201cit\u2019s not about being right, it\u2019s about making money,\u201d ultimately ignore markets when needing to make a tough interest rate call, pretend not to care how much money is on the line with his decision? The question matters especially now, as the White House has grown increasingly sensitive to market reactions and Trump has repeatedly criticized and threatened Fed Chair Powell for keeping interest rates high even as investors pushed for relief. Rieder\u2019s own politics are slightly elusive. He donated and supported Senator Corey Booker (D-N.J.), but he has also donated half a million to Republican PACs to support Trump\u2019s presidency.\u00a0<\/p>\n His former colleagues say they\u2019d be shocked if Rieder threw away his role to become a simple loyalist. Tarnow said the job would ultimately \u201cfree\u201d Rieder.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019d be freeing for him, that his responsibility isn\u2019t to make money,\u201d Tarnow said. The data-obsessed Rieder could consider variables he hadn\u2019t been able to before, when he was just focused on his fiduciary responsibility. \u201cHis responsibility set is to guide the country fiscally to a point where we\u2019re at our best.\u201dHis mantra, according to former colleagues, is \u201cwork hard, play hard, give back.\u201d Rieder told Green he has signs that say that all over his house. Now, Tarnow says, he might get the ultimate opportunity to give back.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a guy that wants this,\u201d Tarnow said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Arrow #Button #Icon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometime in the early 1970s, a… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[3816,4294,3817,6695,575,486,901,1542,3818,176,1553,2187,9728],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16256"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}From academic probation to star student\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
A religion of the downside<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Who follows a bond trader: 42 people<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Quiet power<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Can a market animal sit still?<\/strong><\/h2>\n