From Breakfast Club to International Expo

In 1998, Tim Bourquin did know that he was going to co-found the

. He was a police officer for the LAPD and worked from 2:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. While this might not sound like an ideal schedule, it gave Bourquin the "perfect opportunity to trade on the west coast from 6:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m."

"I learned my first strategies for trading online from a police academy classmate who had been trading currency online," Bourquin told Benzinga. "Back then there were just two online currency brokers, the spreads were ridiculous, and in times of high volatility their data feed and order execution just stopped working. It was the perfect environment to learn how to trade!" After trading on his own for a while, Bourquin said that he started searching for a conference or convention that he could attend to meet other retail traders and learn more about how to make money. "I couldn't find any so I decided to start a daytrading club that would meet for breakfast once a month on Saturdays," Bourquin explained. "I literally placed a classified ad in our local newspaper asking if any other traders wanted to connect and a week later I was having breakfast with three other traders. That Saturday breakfast turned into 500-600 traders meeting in a hotel ballroom every other Saturday. We called it Daytraders of Orange County initially, but as it grew we had traders coming from all over so I changed it to Daytraders USA." During one of the meetings in 1998, a direct execution broker/company asked Bourquin if it could put a table at the back of the room. "I initially said no," said Bourquin. "But they were persistent and eventually one table turned into two, into four, etc. A speaker I brought in to talk about trading futures suggested we start a convention together and the Day Trading Expo was born. We had our first event in September of 1999 in Southern California and then four events the next year in New York, Dallas, Ft. Lauderdale, and Los Angeles." That expo has blossomed into a worldwide gathering that encompasses a group of traders unlike any other. "I started the TradersExpo simply because it was an event I wanted to attend myself as a trader," Bourquin

. "I knew there were lots of people out there who wanted to learn more but online trading and investing was just getting started so there wasn't a lot of information out there. I brought in speakers I wanted to hear and called sponsors and exhibitors I used myself." "Most importantly, I wanted to have detailed workshops where traders could come learn practical strategies they could use immediately to make money," he added. "No theory allowed. I need that information myself and made that the number-one goal of every event. It still is the number-one goal today." TradersExpo Vegas is just a few weeks away. The event is scheduled to take place at Caesars Palace from November 14 through November 17. Benzinga readers can register for free by heading over to the

.