Early years.
My brother Eduard was always very sharp, he did well in school, had a lot friends but was always in some sort of trouble. He grew up between 2 cities in the former USSR…Samarkand and Dushanbe.He was the first son, the first grandson on my mother’s side of the family and the first Yusupov on my father’s side of the family.
Since he was the first son a lot was expected of him and he had to be an example for the rest of us. My father used to teach him a lot of things and one of things that he taught him well was math. My brother excelled in math and physics he even competed in math tournaments and won awards. His childhood was fun. He loved to play soccer with his friends outside and he liked to spend his summers in Samarkand with the grandparents.
He was a bit of a trouble maker and in order to keep him off the streets my mother put him to a music school. In music school he learned to play the accordion. He graduated high school in Dushanbe and ended up going to college in Samarkand. In the former USSR it was hard to get into a college because it was free and space was limited. Space was limited especially if you were Jew. His university had only 7 Jewish students. Besides being academically strong people had to have connections to apply to the university. Dr. Amnun Kimyagarov helped Eddie apply to the University, he successfully passed and got admitted. The exams were oral and written you had to study everything in order to answer 3 question, that would determine if you passed or failed your class. He got into the university to major in business and economics. He was a straight A student, he participated in physics, math, chemistry competitions to represent his college. He won the awards for his university.
Immigration
The Soviet Union collapsed and my family decided to immigrate. He never finished college and unfortunately he never continued it in the US. When we left Dushanbe in 1989 we had a visa for Israel and because of that our immigration journey to come to America was 7 months long. We lived in Austria and Italy. In Italy Eddie and my other brother Mikhail went to work. They used to wash car windows at different intersections in Rome, they worked hard to help out the family.
FXCM
After we came to America Eddie worked in many different jobs in order to help the family. At one of his jobs he met Thomas Plaut, who was the chief dealer of FX desk in Singapore at Credit Suisse Bank. Tom saw that Eddie was very smart and had a big potential, he recommended that he study technical analysis of financial markets. Tom introduced Eddie to his teacher Mainard Holt who taught him technical analysis in Nashville Tennessee. Eddie also learned to trade according to technical analysis. Eddie ended up getting a job at Money Garden as a Forex trader and that’s where he met his future partners with whom he would open the company called Forex Capital Markets or FXCM.
Eddie, Drew Niv and Michael Romersa decided to leave Money Garden and open up their own Forex company they had the skills but not enough capital. They met William Ahdout, Ken Grossman and David Sakhai and together they combined their resources and formed FXCM.
The company was started in 1999 and it grew exponentially throughout the years. Eddie was the Chief Dealer he ran the trading room. All the other partners had their own responsibilities and did a great job. The company started expanding and growing nationally and internationally, it expanded to China, Japan, UK and worldwide. It became one of the top retail Forex companies in the world. We had the best trading platform, excellent spreads and very fast execution of trades. Eddie worked nights and there were times he would not even come home. He lived at work because it got very busy. The Forex Market is a 24 hour market and the busiest time is usually night time for New York. He spent his best years working and helping many people. He never had time to start his own family because he was always at work.
On December 2, 2010 on Chanukkah the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange with a $1 Billion valuation. Eddie lived the American dream, he was ringing the opening bell on the NYSE! He was just a hard working immigrant who’s dream became true.We were all very proud of him and I am pretty sure my dad was super proud of him in heaven. My dad always used to say in Bukharian “bachim hud boy bacha” or my son is self-made, he was proud that everything my brother achieved was through his own hard work. Our parents never spoiled us with material things but that they did spoil us with their love, attention and support. In the end I think those were the key ingredients to my brother’s success.
My brother helped many people in many ways. Many people he hired it was their first job and first big break. The departments he managed had the lowest turnover because he always treated his employees with kindness. He was always understanding that people had families and lives outside of the company, he always accommodated his employees during the happy times and sad times. Many programmers that basically built the backoffice and the trading platform he brought from Russia he made sure they got their visa stayed in the US. Many of them that came would sometimes sleep in our house in my room.
On January 15, 2015 FXCM had a massive margin call because the Swiss bank decided to un-peg the Euro Swiss currency pair. At that point it was obvious that the company would never be the same. It was basically a shakeup and a wake up call for my brother that nothing lasts forever. One day you can have everything and the next day it can all be gone. The most important thing you can have is a family and a strong support system. That time in his life finally allowed him to slow down and start his own family. The company was taken over by another company and eventually all the founding partners left. It was sad to see but at the same time Eddie got something bigger out of this, a beautiful family and 2 beautiful daughters. G-d works in mysterious ways. Sometimes we lose something in order to receive something bigger and better. We question everything in the beginning and later on we realize that it was all for the best.