Joe Ritchie

Joseph Ritchie (born 1946) is a commodities and options trader, the founder of Chicago Research and Trading, whose capital went up from $200,000 to over $225 million in 11 years According to BusinessWeek, "Ritchie is widely acknowledged to be one of the sharpest minds in the options business".

As an avid aircraft owner/operator, Joe Ritchie and his personal friend and mentor, record-setting balloonist Steve Fossett, captured 4 world records previously held by Chuck Yeager in a Piper Cheyenne 400LS. Flying a Piaggio P.180 from San Diego to Charleston, S.C. on February 6, 2003, Ritchie and Fossett averaged 546.81 mph, setting a class transcontinental record and, in the process, establishing new point-to-point records from El Paso to Charleston and Fort Worth, and from Fort Worth to Atlanta. The transcontinental speed record was selected as one of the National Aeronautic Association's Most Memorable Aviation Records of 2003. He has also served as chief of mission control on all of Fossett's missions.

In 1989 Ritchie committed $ 30 million of his own cash to buy Eastern Airlines. In 2000 he and his brother James tried to unite Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban. In 1988 Abel Aganbegyan who at the time was Mikhail Gorbachev's chief economic advisors said about Ritchie My dear friend Joe Ritchie is able to use socialist principles and still make a profit.

See also

• Steve Fossett
• Mark Ritchie

References

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External links

• Alpha magazine
• A marriage of convenience
• Opting for the undulating plane
• Joe Ritchie

Further reading