Laura Pedersen was 18 years old when she was hired for an entry-level job on the trading floor of the American Stock Exchange. Within a year, she was a full-fledged options trader, and at 20 she became the youngest person in history ever to get a seat. At 21, she became a partner in a Wall Street firm, and by 22 she was a millionaire (all while taking night classes to earn a Finance degree at New York University).

Being an options trader in the explosive financial markets of the 1980s gave Pedersen, a native of Buffalo, New York, a unique opportunity not just to observe, but also to participate in the biggest bull market in history. No peripheral player, she would, during a typical trading day, buy and sell over a million dollars worth of securities. To do so, she engaged in virtual combat, emerging each day from the pit with torn and food-stained clothes, cuts, and bruises, barely able to speak after shouting all day long, and deafened by the roar of the trading floor.

Even so, it wasn't all work and no play. In her book Play Money: My Brief But Brilliant Career on Wall Street (1991), Pedersen offers the investing public a wry and candid look at the way Wall Street really works, as seen from inside the world of high finance. In many respects, her book is the flip side of the Liar's Poker and Barbarians at the Gate look at high finance. Play Money brings added dimension to the emerging literature on a decade of greed and excess, a decade unparalleled in recent history.

In October 1989, after the second Wall Street crash, Pedersen took her assets and left the Exchange on the verge of burnout. "I had my midlife crisis at 23," she explains. After spending some time working for Joan Rivers and then serving as a financial consultant, Pedersen wrote her second book, Street-Smart Career Guide(1993), which provides practical advice on turning work into wealth.

Pedersen was the youngest columnist for The New York Times, where she still writes regularly, and has her own television show called Your Money and Your Life on the Oxygen Network.

In 1994 President Clinton honored her as one of Ten Outstanding Young Americans. She has appeared on shows such as CNN, Oprah, Good Morning America, Primetime Live, and David Letterman. She has also performed stand-up comedy at "The Improv," among other clubs, and writes material for several well-known comedians.

Laura's first novel, Going Away Party, won the Three Oaks Prize for Fiction. Her short stories and humorous essays have won numerous awards and been published in literary journals. She has just finished another novel called Beginner's Luck that has been optioned as a movie.

Pedersen is much in demand on the corporate lecture circuit. She speaks to businesses on industry trends and where the economy is headed, and includes plenty of humor to keep her audiences entertained.

Business, Economy Finance,