Frank A. Russo of Bridgehampton died on July 6. He was 84.
Mr. Russo started his career on Wall Street in 1950 while putting himself through night school at City College of New York and supporting his mother. Survivors said he was “a true visionary” on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange, as well as in running trading desks.
He met his wife, Eileen—the first woman to work on Merrill Lynch’s trading desk—while doing business with Merrill Lynch.
In 1964, while running equity trading and the floor operation at Donaldson, Lufkin, and Jenrette, he put up the largest trade in the history of the NYSE in Public Service of Colorado (PSR). On that day he grabbed his clerk and younger cousin, John Tozzi, who led him to the specialist booth where Mr. Russo put up the trade. This was a monumental event for him and when his first son was born, he named him Paul Stephen Russo (PSR) after that stock.
Soon after that day, while being interviewed, Mr. Russo coined the phrase “Block Trading,” which has been used from that day on.
After leaving DLJ, Mr. Russo ran White Weld’s equity trading department, which was taken over by Merrill Lynch. He was offered co-head of trading for Merrill but said if he couldn’t run it solo, he had no interest.
At that time he had a summer home, which he had built in 1970, on the ocean in Bridgehampton, and he decided to leave Manhattan and move his family there permanently.
He ran a small retail office in Water Mill for a couple of years, but he eventually made the difficult decision to go back to work in Manhattan while his family stayed in Bridgehampton.
He took various positions until he settled at a small firm, which was a subsidiary of DLJ called Autranet. While there, Mr. Russo became one of the innovators of “soft dollars” and he built Autranet into a powerhouse capturing a large percentage of the daily volume on the street while training a young aggressive group of sales traders who were riding and continue to ride the wave of success, survivors said. After a 60-year career on Wall Street. Mr. Russo continued to trade until the day he died.
Mr. Russo is survived by his wife of 56 years, Eileen; four children, Fran, Carol, Paul and John; his grandchildren; and many friends.
on Jul 20, 2015