John F. Eckstein III | T-bill futures trader, 74

John F. Eckstein III, 74, one of the first traders of Treasury bill futures contracts following their debut in 1976 and a pioneer of cash-futures arbitrage trading in the U.S. government bond market, died July 24 at a nursing home in New Rochelle, N.Y. He never fully recovered from a heart attack he suffered in 2005, his son, John F. IV, said.

He began his career as a Treasury trader at First National City Bank - a predecessor of Citibank N.A. - and worked at Discount Corp. of New York, an independent dealer of U.S. government securities. Mr. Eckstein then founded J.F. Eckstein & Co. around 1972, according to his son, director of research at Astor Asset Management L.L.C., a division of Jersey City-based Knight Capital Group Inc.

Financial futures were in their infancy, and Mr. Eckstein traveled frequently from his New York office to Chicago to establish himself in the trading pits.

He favored short-maturity Treasury securities, structuring trades based on yield curve distortions, and deductions about Federal Reserve decisions, which until 1994 were not announced, his son said.

Mr. Eckstein also had a role in When Genius Failed, Roger Lowenstein's 2000 book about the collapse of the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management, which lost $4 billion amid tumbling world markets in 1998.

John Francis Eckstein III was born on Oct. 1, 1937, in Jersey City, N.J., and graduated from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., in 1959.

Survivors also include his wife, Alison, and two other children - Andrew and Jacquelyn - from two previous marriages that ended in divorce. He also had two stepdaughters, Schuyler Clemente and Blair Clemente. - Bloomberg News