← The Iced Coffee Hour
The Iced Coffee Hour
Stock Market Expert: A Warning on Artificial Intelligence, Memestocks, & The Next Crisis
01:40:43
Loading summary
Transcript168 lines
- [00:00]
Peter Tuckman
My dad works in B2B marketing.
- [00:02]
C
He came by my school for career.
- [00:04]
Graham
Day and said he was a big roas man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.
- [00:12]
C
My friends still laugh at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B but with LinkedIn you'll be able to reach people who do. Get a hundred dollar credit on your next ad campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com campaign to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com campaign. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be. To be. I thrive on chaos. We traded millions of shares every day. The open outcry, screaming and yelling. Absolutely frenetic, adrenaline filled, wild, crazy time. I've seen every crash since 87. The bubble of 2000, crash of 07 Covid. I'm there to forensically try and understand why the market does what it does. Is it rigged? Well, I don't like the term rigged, but is it, is there a bit of a control going on? Yes.
- [00:58]
Peter Tuckman
What do you think the biggest risk is to the stock market over the next two years?
- [01:03]
C
We're in the middle of this AI phenomenon, this crazy tech trade. We've got bank crises, we've got wars going on. What ends up making a crash is when you have a perfect storm where suddenly everything comes together at once.
- [01:22]
Peter Tuckman
Peter, thank you so much for coming on the iced coffee.
- [01:25]
C
This is my pleasure.
- [01:26]
Peter Tuckman
Really need the iced coffee hour. You are known as the Einstein of Wall Street.
- [01:31]
C
Yes.
- [01:32]
Peter Tuckman
And where I first found you, I believe was probably 2019, 2020. Your face was everywhere. On CNBC, anytime there would be a stock market panic, stock market, you know, increase whatever it is, your face is across everywhere. Where did that start?
- [01:49]
C
So, you know, I'm really happy to be here. This is great. I appreciate it. You know, it's been an amazing journey, right. You know, I'm known as the on Sunday Wall street, the most notable photographed, I like to say, photogenic face on Wall Street. And you know, historically Wall street has not been a place where there was a lot of press. Back in the old days they're actually the press would show up on big days and they would take a picture of this guy. His last name was Gershwin. He was a broker on the floor for years. He was the Wall street dude. They right. And that was before I was sort of well known. And in 2006, I think it was one of the crashes we had. There was a photograph taken of me and I had my hands in the air like this. The market was down 650 points and that photograph of me with my hands in the air got on the front page of the Daily News and then everybody sort of picked it up right away. It was sort of captured everyone's heart and sort of the feeling of that crazy crash. It was one of the big first, big sell offs. It was mid February of, of 2016.
- [02:50]
Peter Tuckman
Do you ever pose for those photos? Those photos?
- [02:53]
C
So you're not allowed to. So actually they may sometimes seem pose but the bottom line is I kind of wear my emotions on my chest, right on my face. You know the photographers actually get the images. Ap, all those guys will not take a picture if it's posed. So all of that emotion is real. So there, no, there's nothing exposed there. But so that was sort of the beginning of this, of this journey for me. You know I, I've had number of TV shows on the floor for a while. I didn't think I to say. And so coming off of that picture, my face became the, the face of the floor. And it ended up going viral everywhere. It was, you know, the beginning of sort of virality in the Internet and all that kind of stuff. I ended up on thousands of front pages all over the country. So and that sort of got global. So that emotion that I showed in my face, everybody loved because everybody's so related to the stock market. So that, that was sort of the beginning of the journey. I mean I ended up getting on thousands of newspapers and so my face became the face. It was not till a number of years later that I started to think I had anything to say. And I started doing interviews and talking about the market.
- [03:59]
Peter Tuckman
How accurate is Wall street to what you see in the movies? People like yelling and screaming and showing papers everywhere.
- [04:05]
C
No question about it. Back in the 80s that was incredibly a great rendition of what we did on a daily basis. We traded millions of shares every day. The open outcry, screaming and yelling, absolutely frenetic, adrenaline filled, wild, crazy time is exactly how it was in reality. There were 8,000 people in that room. You guys were on the floor with me recently. You saw how now it's, you know, it's wind down to price 7 or 800. But back then there was a huge support staff on the floor. There were four rooms, there were thousands of brokers, 1366 brokers. There were clerks and reporters and squads and you know, literally thousands of people open outcry, screaming and yelling. And I love that I thrive on chaos, right? I still to this day. So I asked them for a regular job and in September they gave Me a job as a clerk. I became an option clerk and back then. So there's no training to be a broker on the floor. In order to one's quest when they get down to Wall street is to become a broker. In order to become a broker somebody has to leave the post. So I did it in three years. I got very lucky. One guy died, one guy retired, one guy got fired and I moved up the ranks. And in three years I went from teletypist to broker. I got my first seat in April of 88.
- [05:20]
Peter Tuckman
What are the salaries like starting off on Wall Street? Starting off from the bottom, working your way up. Was it a high paying?
- [05:26]
C
No, not at all. A squad made 67 a week. My first job in 1985 as a clerk, a retail clerk. I made $21,000 a year. And then I got as high as on my way to becoming a broker over those three years. I think by the time I got my seed, I was making 25,000 a year. Now you know, it depends. There were people back then already making a lot of money. But you have to realize it's important for people to know, to look at the landscape of Wall street that they're the upstairs people and there's the downstairs people. Wall street is called the street for a reason. Most of the people who have been traditionally employed on the floor of the exchange are not your MBAs, are not your sort of high flying M and a venture capital type of guys. Those are the. It's a different breed of people. These are people who grew up in the neighbor neighborhood, heard about Wall street, came down there, started at the bottom, great rags to riches stories. The guy who once shined shoes went on to become a multi millionaire market maker. So there's lots of really fun stories about how people you know, went up in the ranks. But it took a while for me to make money. I mean it was not until probably early 90s where I got an offer from, from Ivan Boesky in fact. So Ivan Boesky was one of those. He was the first guy to get caught insider trading, right. He was claiming that premonitions about what.
- [06:53]
Peter Tuckman
Makes a leader stand out. It's not just about taking charge, but about setting new standards and embracing bold moves. If you lead by example and live with passion, the Range Rover Sport is made for you. Every model of the Range Rover Sport offers a unique blend of dynamic sophistication and sporting luxury. It's where refined elegance meets visceral power. With focused on road performance and world renowned off road capability. This Vehicle rises to every occasion. Experience the adaptive off road cruise control that adjusts to your terrain and dynamic air suspension for superior agility and control. Plus adaptive dynamics ensures smooth, composed handling by minimizing unwanted body movements. For those who elevate their desires and lead by example, the Range Rover Sport is more than a luxury vehicle, it's a statement. Discover it today at land Rover USA.com Again, that's land RoverUSA.com thank you range Rover Sport for sponsoring this episode. And now back to the podcast past.
- [07:48]
C
Stocks, trading and takeovers and all this stuff. And it turned out that he had a rabbi up at Goldman Sachs who was giving him inside information. He ended up getting indicted and fined $180 million. And $180 million he made, he made billions of dollars.
- [08:02]
Peter Tuckman
So the 180, in hindsight, was really just a slap on the wrist of.
- [08:06]
C
Absolutely. So the whole, the, the original Wall street movie with Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen is the story of Ivan Bosi.
- [08:13]
Peter Tuckman
Is it really?
- [08:14]
C
Right.
- [08:14]
Peter Tuckman
I had no idea.
- [08:15]
C
That's the original. And if you read the story of Ivan Bosi, it' got.
- [08:19]
Graham
How was he getting the insider information?
- [08:22]
C
He had a guy up, he had.
- [08:23]
Graham
A guy, Goldman Sachs. And then when they were acquiring a certain company, they would let him know.
- [08:27]
C
And then he would just phone call and he'd go, listen, in about three weeks we're going to be buying, you know, RJR Nabisco is going to be buying Beatrice or, or whatever it may be. And so he would give him that information. He would start to accumulate large blocks of stock. Right. And we should, one should have known it at the time, but it was not something we did know because they were buying when they went into a stock, they were buying millions of shares of stock. And he was claiming that he was having these, these visions at night about potential takeovers. And of course it was not, it was a call and the guy's name was Dennis Levine. And so he did it for a number of years, made millions and millions of dollars. And he was there at every one of the takeovers. And everyone was like, how did you know? You know, I was like, oh, I, it was like, I heard it, I heard he used to say, I think I heard voices under my pillow or something. And then of course, you know, after the investigation, I think it was a Giuliani investigation back when he was the, that they found out he was getting inside information. But so it took a while for me to end up making money on Wall Street. But back then, brokers, there were brokers who were making, you know, depending on what company you worked for, if you were a house broker or a $2 broker, which was an independent commission broker, I mean, there were guys making, you know, 100, 200,000, probably there were guys making more money than that. But the street is not, you know, back then people have this vision of these big Wall street bonuses, right? If you look at the press from the 80s and 90s, you would hear about, you know, people making 30, 40 million dol dollar bonuses. And that was not ever something that happened on the floor of the exchange. Those were the guys, the investment bankers, you know, the guys upstairs on trading desks who were putting the deals together and doing things. Those were the guys who were making the major.
- [10:07]
Peter Tuckman
How does that differ from the lower to the upper? And can you move from the lower to the upper? Are there two separate just careers entirely?
- [10:14]
C
It's a different career, okay? You know, if you work on the floor of the exchange, there's probably a cap on the amount of money you can make. Now it's a completely different story. But back then, you know, there were people making, but it was not a function of people who were upstairs were a different, it was a different breed of people. It was a totally different job. We have to realize that us on the floor, right, who were trading, you know, open outcry. It was a different temperament of human being, right? These guys had a lot more education than most of the guys on the floor. You know, these guys were street smart. Those guys were book smart, right? And the book smart guys who put together the big deals, you know, if you were a guy who put together an M and A deal and the deal was worth, you know, half a billion, doll, your, your compensation was a percentage of that deal. That didn't happen on Wall Street. We were really working hard. We were commission brokers.
- [11:07]
Graham
So if someone's trying to understand what a stockbroker does, what exactly do they do?
- [11:12]
C
Okay, there's so a stock trader. The stock trader, stock broker from the floor side is somebody who basically is at the point of execution of buying shares of stock from a market maker. Orders are generated upstairs. Think about this. You wake up in the morning, you're at Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley. Everybody shows up for the morning meeting. They have a customer base and assets under management. Hundreds of millions of dollars. They're there to invest people's money, right? So their goal, and they have a crew of analysts who decide what they're going to invest in. Okay? Obviously, you know, the better the firm, the better the analyst, the better the prediction of how the stock is going to move. So the analysts make a prediction on what they are good investments. They come to the portfolio managers, they sit down and they decide, okay, we're going to buy a million shares of this. Sell 2 million shares of that, whatever it may be. They sit down at their morning meeting and they say, today we're going to buy a million of this. Sell a million of this, and we're going to go in and out of stock, right? Those orders are all generated upstairs. They are called down to the floor. At least in the old days, they would be called down to clerks on the floor. The clerk, he'd say, buy me 100,000 shares of IBM. I have a million shares behind it, meaning there's more stock to buy behind it. But I'm giving you 100,000 to buy right now. Go out there and give me a feel on what's going on in the market. Go to the market maker and ask him, where are the buyers? Where are the sellers? Where can I buy a hundred thousand? I may have more stock behind it. What's the market? The market means what's the playground look like, right? Who's there? Who's buying? Who's selling? What's the temperament of the stock for a while? Order is generated up here. It's called down to the clerk on the floor. The clerk will then put up the broker, right, me, I'm one of the house brokers, or I'm a $2 broker. And he'll say, Peter, we've got 100,000 shares to buy. I'd like to buy half of them in line. I'd like to work the rest of them. And we have a million shares behind it. It's kind of Wall street lingo, but you can get the sense of it that we have stock to buy. I would then go out to the market maker. We. I think I gave you a little background on that. On the floor. The market maker is an independent firm that has been allocated the stock by the New York Stock Exchange. He's there to create a smooth and active market. He's there to inject liquidity into the marketplace. He's there to coordinate the buyers and sellers. So I'll say, guys, we're going to bid a quarter for 200,000. We'll talk. And the sellers will go, you know what? Great. We'll sell 250,000 shares, the market maker. If there are four buyers and three sellers, the market maker will then step in as a seller to consummate a bigger trade. If there are three sellers and two buyers, the market maker will buy stock to consummate a bigger trade. This is all a negotiation.
- [13:57]
Peter Tuckman
Although before we go into that, we have to ask ourselves a question. What does the future hold for businesses? Because the thing is, if you ask nine experts, you're going to get 10 different answers. Rates are going to rise, they're going to fall. The stock market is going to be going up. We're going to see a bear market. We really just got to invent a crystal ball at this point. But I guess until that happens, over 37,000 companies have already future proofed that business with our sponsor, Netsuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP that brings accounting, financial management, inventory and HR into one fluid platform.
- [14:29]
Graham
And with just one unified business management suite, you have just one source of truth, giving you all of the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. And with real time insights and forecasting, you're peering into the future with actionable data. And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, like unfortunately I've done for way too many years, you spend way less time looking backwards and a whole lot more time looking at the next opportunity.
- [14:50]
Peter Tuckman
And speaking of opportunity, right now you could download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com ICED again. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com ICed again. It's netsuite.com ICED with the link down below in the description. Thank you so much Netsuite, for sponsoring today's podcast. And now let's get back to the episode.
- [15:10]
Graham
How do market makers make money if all they're doing is injecting liquidity into the market? Are they taking a certain percentage off of each trade or are they employed? Is it like a government thing? Are they employed by the New York Stock Exchange?
- [15:22]
C
No, they're employed by their firm. But what they do is they buy low and sell high. So his job is to constantly be buying and selling, facilitating the trades, but in the meantime making money. His goal is to buy low and sell high. You have to realize, in the absence of a public buyer or seller, the market maker has to buy the stock or sell the stock. So in the case of a crash, the crash of 1987, where the market opened and proceeded to sell down 600 plus points or 30 plus percent, stocks went from 160 to 60. At one point, the public stopped buying the stock because they ran out of money or they watched their positions go down 100 points. The market Maker had to participate all the way down. So at the end of the day on Monday, the day of the crash of Black Monday, the market makers were long. They owned tons of stock at much higher prices at the close of business. If you'll remember that great scene in trading places where they tried to confiscate their seats, they said, Mr. Duke, you know how it is here. At the end of business trading, you have to come clean with how much you need money to capitalize the trades you own. So if the market maker was buying stock all the way down to 60, from 160, he needs to have money in the bank to support those trades. Many companies went bankrupt on the crash, the Black Monday, because they didn't have the money to support those trades. Okay, but obviously their. Their goal is to facilitate trading between public buying and selling and make money along the way. It doesn't always happen, but that's the goal.
- [17:08]
Peter Tuckman
What was it like on Black Monday, 1987? What was that like for you?
- [17:13]
C
I was a clerk. I was not a broker yet. I was a retail clerk. And it was absolute chaos and insanity. That was my first sense, kind of. There was a lot of fear going around. I mean, the market was absolutely careening off of a cliff. There was no technology back then. It was all paper. Right. So, you know, basically orders were being spit out of a machine. The phones were ringing. We were getting orders, sell, sell, sell, just like you would see in a movie. And brokers were just coming into the booth and you would hand them stacks of orders to sell everything in sight, they would run out to the crowd. And just at that point, it wasn't a matter of negotiation when a market is tank, just walk into a stock and go, I got 50,000 to sell. Where are the buyers? And then you would hit a bid, you would hit a bid, you would hit a bid, and then you would run into the booth, give me a report, I would call it up to the customer. Because you wanted to give the report to the customer before it traded lower. Right, Right. You didn't want to say you sold them at 50 bucks and then it's. It bounced back to 51. Right. So you. The accuracy and the timeline of this whole negotiation is really pivotal. So it was crazy. It was the wild one of the wildest days, I would say, of all the crashes, I've seen every crash since 87. The bubble of 2000, crash of 07, Covid clearly the craziest day of all time.
- [18:33]
Peter Tuckman
What caused it? Do they know yet?
- [18:35]
C
Yeah, they absolutely do. Yeah. So in each crash. And I've done a lot of talks about the different components that made up each crash that we've seen. Right. And, and for each crash prior to the crash, the markets were trading at record highs. And then something happened obviously in the crash of 2007. What happened was that there were the, the. They were selling mortgage backed. Mortgage backed securities that had nothing behind them. Right. That, that was it. They were packaging products out and selling credit and, and houses to people who they knew could not afford it. Right. And they ended up then there they had had their product was worth 50 cents on the dollar. They knew they had to unload it. So they put it in a nice little box with a bow and they went and sold it to somebody for 50 cents on the dollar. Everyone's looking for a discount. They didn't really. They trusted the seller because he was Morgan Stanley, he was Goldman Sachs. They didn't think that I was being sold, you know, an empty box. So they bought it. Right. And then what ended up happening that they realized suddenly, finally when the market started to crash, they looked under the hood and realized there's nothing in this box. What they gave me is bad debt. So they tried to 25 cents on the dollar. So suddenly they went around this, this sale of massive mortgage backed securities that were really becoming worthless were going around the world to the point where it all the hit the fan and basically everything tumbled. That was the crash of 07. I'm not really clear about the. What facilitated the crash of the 87 crash. There were some insurance things. There was some potential technology that was starting to come into the marketplace. It was, it was sort of a perfect storm. Markets can handle. We saw it during COVID We've seen it during the interest rate crisis and all that kind of. And inflation crisis. Markets can handle virtually anything if it's being given to them. One thing at a time or two things at a time. But what ends up making a crash is when you have a perfect storm where suddenly everything comes together at once. Right. Where you just. The market cannot really digest all of this bad news that's happening and you end up having a crap.
- [20:45]
Peter Tuckman
So after that, how did your career continue progressing? How do you work your way up?
- [20:49]
C
Okay, so I went from through teletypus to option clerk, retail clerk, institutional clerk. I ended up getting lucky and I got a seat on the stock exchange for this one firm. I ended up moving past that firm. A couple other firms I got into, I got a higher offer, making more money. That firm did not want to Pay me much money. So I got an offer to $80,000. I told you to do convertible arbitrage. It was another kind of trading. It's more complicated than we can talk about here. So I got high hired to do that and that, that worked well. But look I've, now I've been doing this for 37 plus years and so I've worked at numerous companies. Now I work for myself. Way to eat a tea. You're listening to an app at PC Game Pass. Want new games on day one like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. How about living out your Sims life with EA Play? We talking high quality PC games offer one low monthly price. We got got you learn more@xbox.com PC Game Pass or click the banner Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Available 12-9-2024. Game catalog varies by region and over time. Okay, that's the ad. You can go back to doing whatever you were doing. Now probably 16 years ago I developed, I built a trading strategy around the S P 500 and the information that we get on the floor. So my, my, my career progressed really beautifully along the way. Although it's had its, it's, you know, it's had its pitfalls. In 2006, 2007 during that financial CR crisis, my business dried up. I actually, I just did an interview about it the other day where that, there was a gentleman who asked me if I've ever been broke, right? You know, there's a guy walks around the street asking people if he's ever been broke and he caught me. When Lehman Brothers went bankrupt and there was a massive financial crisis, everything dried up around the world. People were losing their jobs en masse. And so as a broker on the floor, everybody was obviously super hesitant to just give. I was what's called an independent two dollar broker. So I didn't work for a house, I, a salary, I, I, I, I ate what I killed, right? That was how it worked. And so if there was not that much out there to kill, I did not make much money. And literally There was a two year period in 2006, 2007 where I was not making any money. And I knew that no opportunity was going to find me at home. It was one of my, it was a period of time I was going through some things personally and I think a lot of that, that trajectory in the journey that I described to you, which was really like a fast and furious rise in Wal came to an abrupt halt with the financial crisis of 07. And everything started to tumble. I started to tumble you know, spiritually and emotionally and financially. You know, we know when you're doing well. You know, I mean, that terrible line by Jordan Balfour. I've been rich and I've been poor, and being rich is a lot better. So having had this really good career on Wall street and things were going well, having two children, supporting them and a wife, and then suddenly everything dries up and I lost everything. For a while, I was confronted by my DNA. I thought I dug deep, and I realized I could give up and freak out and go get a job at Home Depot, or I could sort of dig deep into my emotional strata and figure out what to do. And so what I ended up doing, I've had really great mentors along the way. And I learned from. You know, I knew that you learn from failure more than you do from success. So I literally got up every morning for two years and went into work and was not making any money. I never told anybody I wasn't making any money. I didn't tell my wife and kids I was borrowing money, you know, from Paul to pay Peter. I was doing a lot of different hustles, trying to make it by without letting anyone know that I was struggling. But I knew I was smart enough and I had learned enough, like, from my parents, that if I don't put myself out there, no opportunity is going to find me cowering under the covers in my bedroom at home, you know, So I got up and went out there to put myself in front of. In front of the forces of evil. And literally, a year and a half into that, going to work every morning, literally making no money. I ran into someone on the subway who had been a customer many, many years prior who I had not seen in many years. And he asked me, how you doing? And he was still a trader. And for the first time in a while, I kind of got honest, and I said, you know what? I'm. I'm. I'm broke. I'm struggling. I am not making any money money. And he goes, you know what? You are one of my best brokers. That's crazy. I know. I know what's going on in the market and whatnot. Why don't we. Why don't we hook up together and I'll start giving you business? And he did. And we ended up growing a business together, and that sort of took me out of the depths of darkness, and I started making money again. And we ended up trading for another 20 years together, up until recently. He kind of just recently retired, but, you know, I'm say All this to say that it's not always a straight line, you know, to success. It's not always. Even if you're on a road to success, it doesn't always stay that way, you know, and that sometimes, you know, you're going to have to step over dead bodies along the way. And sometimes you're going to have to fake it till you make it. And sometimes you're going to have to wake up, you know, feeling like you just can't do this anymore, but you got to keep doing it.
- [25:57]
Peter Tuckman
So given all your experience in the stock market, what do you think the market is like today? Do you think that prices are too high? Are people becoming too greedy, too euphoric? What is your opinion on the market? Market?
- [26:08]
C
I like to sort of frame everything from the post Covid world. Okay, so let's think back to February 12, 2020. Markets were trading at record highs across all indices. The consumer was in really good shape. The bank's balance sheets were in an extraordinary shape. And basically the economy was doing great, you know, and then. And that turned out to be the high. Nobody knew it at the time, time, but that's what it turned out to be, the high. Suddenly the COVID story unraveled and we went from these record highs and we careened off a cliff until May 20, March 23, 2020, which was that bottom right then. And that was a fast and furious sell off. That was a different. So I've done a lot of analysis around the different crisis that we've had. And I don't use the word crash or crisis lightly because, you know, the market loves to catastrophize things the media does. Right. Suddenly you got it like, like two days last Thursday, we've been going up for row. The market sold off 50 points. And now it's the end.
- [27:10]
Peter Tuckman
Worst day since 2022.
- [27:12]
C
The greatest. This.
- [27:13]
Peter Tuckman
Yes, right.
- [27:13]
C
That's that catastrophist mentality, which is completely nuts. But, but anyway, so that was an extraordinary time. And you know, look, so I love to analyze the different components that make up these crashes. Crash of 87, crash of 29, crash of 2000, 2007 and whatnot. The crash of Covid's crash was an extraordinary one and it was different than anything else. People have often asked me, what did it feel like, the floor? And I go back, look, I got Covid March 15, 2020. I was patient zero. You know, I almost died. I was given four days to live. I got meningitis. I've had nine surgeries. So my Life is. Was completely upended by Covid. I ended up going into isolation. I had 103.7 for almost three months. I had swelling on the brain. My cervical spine collapsed. It was a shitstorm. And my son ended up running my business, which was an amazing thing. He really stepped up, which was great. But the market, which is important to note. So 2007, 2008, with the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve, who's got. We all know what they do, but they, They've got tools to deal with inflation, with all the different things that the economy goes through, right? They're given tools to control and affect the money supply. So the crash of 2007 was. They threw $800 billion into the market as a stimulus to basically bankroll the companies that were going bankrupt and the banks and the brokerage firms that were going under. It took. They did that. They put that 800 billion into the market over 18 months. And it took nine years for the market to get back to even. So Covid came along and the Federal Reserve realized that we were in a huge, potentially global shutdown here. And it was already happening. The market had crashed. Dow down 10,800 points. S& P, double digits. Right. And so they realized that they had a tool. Tool, which was the stimulus package. Once again, they looked back at what happened in 2007 and realized that that was not going to fly. And so they put $3 trillion into the market in three months. Okay, 800 million over 18 months. 079 years to get back to even. 3 trillion in three months. We were back to even by August 19th. In three and a half months, we got back to even. We were up 20% in 2020, 28% in 2021 one. Right. And extraordinary. Everyone was saying, if you remember, people are going like, everyone's dying. There's 3 million people dead. The world's coming to an end. And the market, stock market is going up. Right? So that kind of changed the trajectory of everything. That kind of is where the economy in the world and the stock market kind of took a divergence, right? And now there are times in history where they traded together. The economy is good, market's good, economy is bad, markets bad. That or sometimes they go their opposite ways. Because if you think about it, the stock market, people who's invested in the stock market, not people who are struggling, living paycheck to paycheck, it's more people who have money.
- [30:09]
Graham
The 1% of the 1, the K shaped recovery. It's growing.
- [30:12]
C
Exactly. And they're fulfilling their own destiny here that wealthier people are putting money in the market. Okay, so post Covid world, everything kind of changed. The world changed, markets changed and whatnot. We saw 2022, which was basically so suddenly we're sitting here in 2021, we're trying to get back online after Covid Covid. Basically everything had shut down. Oil production, lumber production. Nobody was building houses, nobody was flying planes, nobody was doing. And suddenly inflation took off. Right? We suddenly had 8 and a half percent inflation. Everything got super expensive. Nobody wanted to go back to work anymore. And so we're in this situation where so what does the Federal Reserve do? And also we printed $3 trillion. You know, I think if we hadn't have done it, we'd all be on breadlines today. So I'm a fan of J Pound, what he did. Some people believe that that's why the inflation was happening because we printed all this money money. But if we didn't print it, we would be in worse shape, in my opinion. Anyway. So suddenly we have a major inflation. What do you do? The Federal Reserve has a tool to take get money. How do you make inflation go down? To take money out of the system, we were trading on zero interest rates. Bank to bank, business to bank. They were able to borrow money for zero free money. That's why the tech sector grew. All R and D, biotechs were on fire. That's why that happened. So people need to understand what makes up the market and the market going up and down. So. And I think it's important for them to understand why we are where we are today. That's why I'm sort of telling the story this way. So suddenly you have high and high inflation. People aren't going back to work. We're still in this Covid mode. And the Federal Reserve decides that, okay, we were part of the problem, now we got to be part of the solution. So what are we going to do? We're going to raise interest rates so that these firms that have been borrowing money in companies and banks and businesses for zero are less likely plea to borrow money. We're going to start to. In order to curb inflation, we need to take money out of the money supply. The only way to do that is to raise interest rates. People are less likely to borrow. So we spent the next 18 months, consecutive months, raising interest rates, right? To pull money out of the money supply. And we were able to get inflation down from 8 and a half percent to almost 2 and a half now. Once again, job well done. Okay, throughout all of this, we're in the middle of this AI phenomenon, this crazy tech trade. You know, we've got bank crises, we've got wars going on, we've got so much going on yet. And we've got this meme phenomenon and we've got crypto and we've got like this is a wild storm we're living in, right? And so net, net at the end of the day, the market going higher and higher is a bit of a self fulfilled prophecy because those people who have been in the market throughout all of this, people who bought the market during the crash of COVID or who have been in it since then or were in it before and have been able to experience this amazing rally have made a lot of money and they're reinvesting that money. And at net net, at the end of the day when you're presented as a wealthy person on where to put my money and you see this real estate sort of dead because interest rates are going up and la la and crypto is questionable and the stock market's going up double digits every year, well, I'm going to put my money there. So we fulfilled this, this destiny by putting more money and more money, more money into the market. We are in the second inning of an incredible game in the AI game and Nvidia is obviously best to breed that. This is a. In the near term, we're all going to be living the life of the Jetsons. You know, you remember the cartoon the Jetsons when you were growing up like robots in your house and so much expansion within the AI and that and that whole tech game. And so that's a huge part of the market, marketplace. I'm saying all this to say, you're asking me the question, why are we where we are and what is, what do people think about the market? The market is incredible. There are always going to be people who are say, we're going to say, I know how I got to that. It can't go any higher. You've got to short the market. I mean this is crazy. How could it go Yet I'm a, I'm a forensic broker. I'm not a financial advisor. I'm not invested in the market. I'm there to forensically try and understand why the market does what it does. That's my, my secret sauce. And that I, that's what gets me up in the morning. I love that part of it. And if I do that on a daily basis and I'm looking at the market wondering, is it overbought? Is it frothy? Is it going to crash? Is this a bubble? It's not point. It's not telling me that story. Right. The story that I'm being told is that the market has a lot more room to grow, that tech is a big part of it, that there are a lot of other sectors that are powerful, that we've got $12 trillion on the sidelines still in cash and mutual funds that have yet to be put into the market, that there are tranches of people who have never wanted to, never were always afraid to buy into this crazy wild trajectory that the market is doing that are eventually going to have to hop on board this train that's leaving the station. So net net. Yeah. Markets go up, markets go down. You know, we've, this is the longest time, I think in decades that we've not had at least a 1 or 5% pullback in a market market in history, almost in history, but decades, right. I mean every sell off that we've seen over the last eight months or a year has been so we had a 10 sell off in April. It was the end of the world. It was an opportunity. It was a buying opportunity. Right. Nvidia went from 940. Nobody wanted to buy it at 940. It's too frothy, it's too expensive. It went down to 736. It's now trading at 1500 post split. So look, you know, the, the economy is sort of catching up with the market. I think people are starting to do better. Some people are starting to go back to work. The, you know, the, the labor market is still a bit of a quandry. But net net, the market seems good to me. Yeah.
- [36:00]
Peter Tuckman
From my perspective it seems like the narrative is that there's all this money sitting on the sidelines in money market accounts that's making 5% and that when the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates, that money's going to be making 4% and they're going to say, well, you know, stocks have done even better. Let me finally invest in stocks which are push stocks higher. What do you think the biggest risk is to the stock market over the next two years?
- [36:23]
C
I've been asked that question a lot over the last couple of weeks. What could the market get tossed that would dislocate this crazy rally? Right. And if I'm to analyze it and I will go over it and I will tell you what, if we say what has been thrown at it over the last two years, that, that the market is completely rebuffed. We had a Major banking crisis last year. It was a very short term selloff that should have, that should have dislocated the market for sure. We have two wars going on. Major. Both of them are in a demographic where oil is involved. So it's got a, it's got a multi component ax to it. Right. Once you have oil, if you have a war in a place that nobody really cares, that's one thing. But you're talking about a place that is that we saw that, remember with the beginning of Ukraine thing and then the beginning of the Middle east thing and the Gulf of Hormuz and that you can't get the, you know, people were blowing up, you know, oil couldn't get to where it wanted and oil went from negative 25 to 125. So what could the, what could the market get tossed at that it would. Politics have no effect on the market whatsoever. Once again confirmed the debate. If you're a pro Trump cry and you watched poor Mr. Biden completely implode. Market did not respond to that. If you're a Trump guy and Trump just got attempt association over the weekend, the market did not respond to that. So that's not it. The banking crisis, that's not it. Two wars, that's not it. Earnings some, you know, we, we have great earnings quarters and we have mediocre earnings quarters. You know what, that's just part of the, the cost of doing business. So what is it that could get, get tossed at the market that would dislocate this? I don't know and I don't know. It's a legitimate.
- [38:10]
Peter Tuckman
It seems like there's the assumption though that the Federal Reserve could always step in and that seems to be a backstop. It almost does that. No matter what happens, like let's say the banking crisis, the Federal Reserve in a way stepped in and said that we're going to make sure all the customers get, are, are 100% whole in this situation. There's not going to be any disruptions and sure enough the next day because I remember that happening on a Saturday. By Monday morning everyone was running as normal. And so there's this belief that no matter what happens, the Fed could always step in. Do you think they're always going to continue stepping in and almost acting as a backstop that no matter what happens, happens, the Fed has these levers to pull of either we could print more money or we could lower interest rates.
- [38:47]
C
And if we do percent it's almost like it's too big to fail. Why would they not they're there to support the economy. Nobody benefits from a, an imploding economy. It just nobody does in any respect.
- [38:59]
Peter Tuckman
Would you say that the economy's then rigged? Because in a way it's like if the Fed is just there to help the economy, they could just keep pushing things forward.
- [39:09]
C
I tend to look, that's more conspiracy than I would want to go. Look, we're all in this, we're all on this boat together, right? Right. We can take each other down, we can take each other up, we can dislocation and throw the wrench in the, in, in the, in the boiler room and really blow the thing up. At the end of the day, nobody benefits from that. Right. Now, are there people who see you're kind of think, is it rigged? Well, I don't like the term rigged, but is it, is there a bit of a control going on? Yes, but that's their job. A Federal Reserve has been given tools to help support the markets and whatnot. Not everybody gets what they want all time. Lima. If it was completely rigged, well then everybody should have been bailed out. Not everyone was bailed out. GM got bailed out. AIG got bailed out. Those turned out to be bailouts. That worked out because whoever the Federal Reserve, some of the big players, Think about it, we live in this system where, you know, if it wasn't the Federal Reserve that helped the banking system during that crash last year, Warren Buffett steps in, right? He bailed out General Motors, he bought stock and you know, in a number of stocks went. So there are wealthy, wealthy j. One of the people who bankrolled the banking crisis last year was, was, was Jamie diamond. Right? So it's not just the Federal Reserve. And I don't, I just don't like the word rigged.
- [40:26]
Graham
But before we get into that, let's get real. Being an adult has its high points. Like you can eat ice cream for dinner, you can play video games whenever you want. In fact, you can even eat ice cream while you're playing video games. But it's not all fun because you have to do your taxes, figure out what's for dinner every night, and of course make doctor, doctor's appointments. But fortunately for that one, there is our sponsor, zocdoc, the healthcare app that makes adulting just that much easier.
- [40:47]
Peter Tuckman
For those unaware, ZocDoc is a free app and website where you could search and compare high quality in network doctors, choose the one that's the right fit for you, and then click to instantly book an appointment.
- [40:57]
Graham
We're talking about in network appointments with more than 100,000 healthcare providers across every specialty from mental health to dental health, eye care to skincare, and so much more. You can filter for. Doctors who take your insurance, are located nearby, are a great fit for any medical need you may have, and of course are highly rated by verified patients. You can also see their actual appointment openings. Choose a time that works best for you and then click to instantly book a visit. And Zocdoc appointments happen fast, usually within 24 to 72 hours of booking, and you can even score same day appointments.
- [41:27]
Peter Tuckman
I'd highly recommend checking out and trying ZocDoc because they just make the entire process incredibly simple. I'll tell you, I booked doctors appointments in the past and it's all incredibly complicated. It's overwhelming. Anything that makes the process simpler is 100% worth it. So stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to zocdoc.comiced to find and instantly book a top rated doctor today. That's ZocDoc.com ICED ZocDoc.com ICED with the link down below in the description. Thank you again to zocdoc for sponsoring today's episode. And now let's get back to the podcast.
- [42:01]
Graham
But what do you say to the people that feel like it seems like a house of cards? Because, I mean, the economy appears to be doing well. The stock market continues to hit record highs, but at the same time a lot of people are struggling, struggling with like the basic necessities like groceries. I mean, housing is incredibly expensive if you want to buy a house. And if people are doing really poorly, and that's a lot of people, shouldn't the stock market be a little bit reflective of the people that are doing poor financial. I'm sure a lot of viewers are probably thinking like, how does this, you know, it seems like the economy is doing well and one administration saying it's doing incredibly well, one saying it's not doing well, and they just feel conflicted because they're struggling.
- [42:37]
C
I understand. Look, as I start to say to you, sometimes the market and the economy are in concert and sometimes they or not, you just said to me, shouldn't the market reflect that? Well, the market can only reflect what it is. If a company's doing poorly and they have poor earnings, the stock goes down. Right? That's a function of their customers. Right? At the end of the day, that's how things go. Right? So I cannot speak to yes, there are people who are struggling and that's unfortunate. I also look at think about it too. We have. If you look at inflation, you look at the cost of food, you look at the cost of living and you cost of gasoline, the things that are the components that make up inflation net net on a global level, we are actually way better than 80% of the rest of the world. Right. So it's a matter of how you look at it and how you judge it. I kind of think people are better off than they were two years ago. It's not ideal. Ideal. Right. Food is expensive. I get that. Right. And, and a lot of expenses. And I feel for everybody as far as that goes. But we are, we're working towards that. A better place on that. That's the best you can. I mean it's a matter of look at, you can sit, sit where you are and about it, or you can say, you know what, we were there and we're now here, so we're doing a lot better. Let's hope we keep going.
- [43:56]
Graham
So do you think people, the average viewer listening right now can beat the s P500? Because Graham and I are of the type where like he's done a little bit of swing trading, a little bit of stock picking back in the day.
- [44:07]
C
Right.
- [44:08]
Graham
But now we're both at a point. I've. I lost a lot of money trying to do that. I got a little bit greedy and.
- [44:13]
C
Trying to beat the S and P.
- [44:15]
Graham
Well, I, I got into options trading and I was selling options. It was doing really well. And I'm like, you know what? Well, maybe I should try buying options because I made money selling them. That's when I lost everything. But we're of firm believers that the only thing, not financial advice that we would ever feel comfortable like openly talking about our own investing, it would be like S P 500.
- [44:34]
Peter Tuckman
Index funds.
- [44:34]
Graham
Index funds, stuff like that. Do you think the average person listening right now could make money doing other strategies or would you just recommend index fund investing?
- [44:44]
C
So I can't recommend anything. Disclaimer. Disclaimer. Everybody look, there's, there's. I've heard a birdie say that if you put 250 into the S P 500 every month from the age of 18 to the age of 60, you'll have $1.5 billion of passive income. Great. Sexy, right? As sexy as you'd want it. Think about that. The S and P, historically dollar cost averaging, you can make money putting some money aside led to. And not everybody is 250. Put $10, put $5. One of my big things that I always talk about is investing in stocks and not stuff, right? People need to really look at their lives. Think about it. We are the greatest consumer generation in the world. We love to buy stuff, right? Everybody's got a closet full of stuff, right? One of the stories I always tell is if your iPhone's 14 is not broken, you don't need the iPhone 15, but everybody goes out and buys it. How about we change the mindset and instead of your buy, go out and buy the iPhone 15, go buy yourself 4 shares of Apple stock if you did that. And Tony Robbins is now using my freaking line on this one. Investing in stocks and not stopping. And the fact is that if we take all the things that we use on a daily basis and we cut back a little of. You don't need nine cafe lattes. Go buy a little Starbucks. You don't need nine yoga suits. Go buy a. Buy a little couple of Lululemons or whatever. But invest in stocks and not stuff. Identify things that potentially may go up in value. It's very hard to beat the s and P500. I have a school with my partner, David Green, called Wall Street Global Trading academy, where we teach thousands of retail traders around the world technical analysis and risk management on how to trade. There's a successful way of trading and it's an unsuccessful way of trading. You were making money because you were collecting premium. You decided to go out there and become a stock picker and buy stock where? And did you? You had to confront the fact that, you know what? Wow, if I put up $1,000 to buy an option and it expires, it's money lost, right? So it's a matter of really learning the game. There is a playbook, right, for beating the s and P500, and it's surely not easy. So there are certain rules, and we teach them every month in our masterclass, right? Have a stop. Have a plan. When you get into a trade, why am I buying it? Right? Because the charts tell me to. Okay? Have a stop order on every trade. Have a plan when you get into a trade. Take a profit when you can, not when you have to. Okay? Never turn a winning day into a losing day. That means that if you're up $1,000, you reached your goal. Have a goal of how much you want to make in a day. If you reach your goal, turn the machine off. It's the best you're going to get. If I'm up $1,000 and I insist that I got diamond hands and I got to keep trading the 20% rule if I lose 20% of my what I made on the day, then you got to turn the machine off. Right? Hire someone to stand behind you and hit you in the head with a 2x4 and you'll probably do well trading. If I'm having a bad day trading and I have three losing trades of $50, I turn the machine off. I'm having a bad day, I'll come back from a bad day. No revenge trading. So there are rules that make you a successful trader that may make you able to beat the S and P.
- [47:51]
Peter Tuckman
But how many people have the emotional maturity to follow that? Like, I feel like all of these things.
- [47:56]
C
Very.
- [47:56]
Peter Tuckman
Yeah, it's.
- [47:58]
C
The psychology of trading is the hardest part of this game. I can teach you. David Green, my partner, who is a master technician, he was a market maker on the floor. He left the floor. He thought he knew everything. He lost 300 grand in the first three months. He said this isn't sustainable. He went out and learned technical analysis and built a strategy around successful trading and the psychology around it. It is very hard. That's the hardest. This part of this, because we get wrapped up. I'll give you one quick analogy. There's two kinds of gamblers. Two people go to Vegas. There's one guy who's got a thousand bucks. He's going to play a thousand dollars if he makes it that he has a goal. If I make a thousand, I'm going to turn, I'm going to step away from the table, go see Salon Dion and go to dinner at Ruth Chris with the family. Great scenario, Great plan. Or the other guy who goes in with a thousand dollar and has no plan, he's up a thousand. He's got diamond hands. He's great. He goes all in. He doubles up. He's up three grand, up four grand. Suddenly he's overdone it. He starts losing. He's lose down a thousand, down two thousand. He goes to the ATM four times and by the end of the night, he's sitting out on the curbs, you know, smoking Lucky Strikes, you know, drinking Hennessy, right? There's two different people, the way they trade and the way they gamble, right? It is. It's a. It's a mindset that you have to go in. This market has never been as volatile as this.
- [49:13]
Peter Tuckman
So if that's the case, why can't you get an Al rhythm to trade on those beliefs? Because I feel like that would not get emotional. You could set certain parameters, certain things that it could look for. Set the stop Losses, trailing stops, and just had that trading on autopilot in the background.
- [49:30]
C
I, well, you know why? First of all, I don't know how to code and I don't know, I'm a really anti tech guy. I don't even own a freaking computer. I'm a people person. I'm a humanist and I'm like one person to another, yeah, maybe there is an algorithm, but you have to realize there are a lot of extenuating circumstances, a lot of nuance around the market, and things can go wrong, right? And it's not like shooting fish in a barrel. So, you know, I'm willing to bet that there's probably some kind of algorithm that you may be able to build that may be able to lock in some profits. I don't think so, though. There's a lot of, there's human error, there's a lot of emotions around it. It's not easy. That's why 80% of people who try day trading fail. Right? That's why in our class, in our school, in our academy, the main thing we teach is the psychology of trading. Right?
- [50:24]
Graham
How is Nancy Pelosi such a good investor? Wouldn't it make sense for a hedge fund to go and hire her?
- [50:31]
C
I'm not sure you'd really want her around the house all the time and, and the farm. So let's, it's a great question. And you know, why. And I, I've, I've, I've, I've brought it up a lot. Why is it that, you know, people in Congress are able to get information. It's inside information. Let's be honest. It's got to be. These people are not traders, but they're making hundreds of millions of dollars. So if I get prior knowledge that Covid is attacking the United States and I buy a bunch of Moderna and I sell a bunch of airline stocks and make a million dollars, well then, then I. It's not my smarts, it's inside information. You know, if you know the show Billion, with which is the story of Stevie Cohen, okay, who runs point 72, one of the great hedge fund managers of our time, right. The belief was that he made a shitload of money off of the 911, the World Trade center, right? There are people who take situations, analyze them and trade on them, whether it's good news, bad news, people getting hurt, whatever, right? The stock market is, you know, it's, it's not rigged. It's just a matter of what you do with the information you have, right? I mean, you know, there, look, if you want to be the, there are funds now, there are trading apps. Right. I've spoken to them all. You can go to Quint Quantitative on Instagram and they'll print every trade that's in Nancy's Pelosi's portfolio. If you, There are, there are trading apps that can actually copycat all the trades of people in Congress. If you want to open up those accounts and copycat them, you can do it too.
- [52:09]
Graham
The problem is though, that isn't it? Don't they give them like a 30 day window to report that stuff? If you are a government official.
- [52:14]
C
So some of it's. Nowadays the information comes out a little earlier. But look, that's, Look, Warren Buffett announces He's taking a 5% stake in XYZ, everyone runs in to buy it. The bottom line is he may have done that six months ago. Right. So it's a matter of knowledge. Information is gold. It's a matter of what you do with the information. You know, is it, is it a little bit rigged in that way? Way, yeah. Should those guys in Congress have privy to information that could be tradable in the stock market? I don't think they should. I don't think that's fair. I like a, I like a fair playing field.
- [52:49]
Graham
What are your thoughts on Wall street bets and what was the New York Stock Exchange floor like when the whole GameStop thing was happening? I'm sure because there is like a, a Citadel booth in the market makers.
- [53:02]
C
And they, they were the stock that.
- [53:04]
Graham
Traded the Gamestop and they, they were the ones suffering. They were the ones that all.
- [53:08]
C
Well, they suffered and they benefited and they suffered and I, I don't want to get too much into name calling because I work with them every day, but yeah, that was a little bit of a wall that got crossed there because Citadel was the one that is the market maker for GameStop. And then there was Melbourne Capital and then all the short stuff and whatnot. All street bets. Look, I actually know the guy who started, who was the first Wall street bet guy, Jamie Rosinski, who was, we.
- [53:34]
Peter Tuckman
Had him on the podcast.
- [53:35]
C
Jamie's a genius and, and he's a sweetheart and he's a good guy. He ended up getting ousted by his own, his own rats. Right. I just spoke to him a couple of weeks ago actually, and he's wonderful. You know, there's nothing, there's nothing to say, nothing better than to say about what? There's some smart people out there, you know, and a lot of them are willing to share their smarts. Right? Like Jamie. Jamie's amazing that way. You know what? It was wild and crazy time on Wall street that day. GameStop stopped trading 29 times. Times. Okay. You know, I, we felt it was an attack on us. We felt that it compromised the integrity of the floor. But you know, at the end of the day, I mean, look, I, I'm not, I don't like to should have, would have, could have and holler about stuff like that. At the end of the day, the game was made and if somebody's able to, to you know, figure out a way to mess with it, you know what, until we find out that it's really f, then you know it's going to happen after to happen. What ended up outlook, it was a fascinating phenomenon. You know, that happened then. Now what I'd love to talk about is the recent resurgence of Roaring kitty. Yes. So Roaring Kitty in my opinion was a bad guy. The guy obviously came along. He had a bit of a, he had a good streak. He made a bunch of money. Right. But what ended up happening with him and what I really am angry about recently is that he, what he's doing now, what he did by coming out and saying I'm long a billion shares of this and he got Everybody to buy GameStop to $67 after the close of market business that day. And for, for. No, you have to realize when you have a platform, you need to know who's following you and you need to know the effect of your words on them. I'm not going to have a platform and say that's going to make some kid jump out a window. Excuse my language. You know, more people lost money that day because he went out there and touted that stuff. Right. That's irresponsible. In fact, in my opinion it should be completely, completely illegal. You need to know that people are following you and they're going to follow you to the end of the earth because you said what was the mindset behind that? When he went out and he said I got, I'm coming back, you know, I'm in GameStop and I've got own a billion dollars worth of that stock. What is the retail amateur irresponsible? You know, first time newbie trader thinking, well, he's never going to let it go down because he has a billion dollars. He's not, he doesn't want to lose money. So everybody ran into the stock. The next day it went down to 20 again. Right. And everybody lost money but him. He may have Lost money, but we don't know what he's really doing. I mean, you know, look, you can hide behind the mask of social media in so many different ways. You know.
- [56:09]
Peter Tuckman
Yeah, my understanding was that he didn't sell and they're trying to get him for market manipulation. But he's trying to say, his whole livestream, I thought was a genius play from his perspective to show that he. That he's not pumping the stock because when he went live, the stock went down. And so that's his argument of saying, look, I don't have a positive impact on this. I went live and it went down. And here's proof that I'm not manipulating the stocks. I see. I see the perspective. Personally, I do tend to side with it being closer to market manipulation because he's posting about such big positions. But then you get to the point of where do you draw the line of if, you know, if. Let's just say Jack's uncle goes and posts on Facebook saying, I bought a million dollars of this stock, it's going to have zero effect versus if someone else with a large following says the same thing. It will. And where do you draw that line of? Like, at a certain follower count, a view count. What if Jack's uncle posts has zero following, but that post, for whatever reason, just goes viral? Now all of a sudden, is he liable for something he said that happened to go viral by chance? It's such a weird. I agree with you.
- [57:14]
C
It's a fine line.
- [57:15]
Peter Tuckman
And then also personal responsibility of someone is following Roaring Kitty and, you know, then it's gambling at that point.
- [57:22]
C
I agree with you 100%. Everyone is responsible for their own hitting of buttons. So look, if you're going to get into bed and do that kind of stuff, then you're, you're on your own. In a way, I felt that what he did was market manipulation. I think his, his live stream was a bit of a psychotic rant. And the guy doesn't, in my opinion, look particularly stable. But that's not. I'm not a doctor, but at the end of the day, I felt that was irresponsible in so many different ways. And we don't really know what's going on in the backdrop. He may have had somebody selling it. He may not even be long, all that. I mean, how do we know what's really going on right at the end of the day? So you know what? I'm not. Look at the time, I thought it was fascinating what happened, the fact that you can use social media to corral the troops, to take a stock that is bankrupt and take it from 2 to 483 and back to 3. Fascinating for me as a trader and somebody who is an educator and is trying to get people. You have no idea how many thousands of people have come to us me and David Green and said I'm still long Rivian at $98. I'm still long GameStop at 480. I analyze these meme stocks. I know that a majority of the volume is at the highest, highest price and most people have gotten caught long these things at a higher price. And as, as, as to your point, everyone's responsible for hitting their own button but at the end of the day I'm my, my job is to try and level the playing field and educate people about what really goes on and how to make some money and do and so yes, at the end of the day it's everybody's responsibility if you do that. But look we saw some guy jump out a window who was trading Robinhood if you remember, some kid committed look. So social media is a two sided coin. It can be really good. It's a matter of what you do with your platform and it can be a dangerous space too. You know one needs to have personal responsibility for what you do and if you're a notable person on social media you should have some responsibility on what you're saying.
- [59:12]
Graham
Who do you think is the most effective investor of all time and what's the best investment you ever made?
- [59:17]
C
The best investment I ever made was in my children. Up until recently I never owned a share of stock in my life. I am as a registered broker. I'm not allowed to be in a stock for myself and for my customers in a 30 day period. So I decided many, many years ago I wasn't going to invest in the stock market and I've never invested in the stock market. Recently I inherited a little money and I gave it to some a wonderful guy who is trading it. But I don't know what I'm in. I never picked it, I never called it. I said here's a couple of shekels, make me some money. But, but so I, I, so there I always drew a, a strict line but between that.
- [59:54]
Graham
So when they're compounding growth like knowing about all this stuff when you were young, like you know you could have invested say 30 years ago, you didn't think to like okay, all these other people are doing it. I see, see them getting very wealthy.
- [60:05]
C
As long as for the 37 years that I've been a broker. For me to invest in the market in stocks that I'm not in for customers was a pretty complicated thing. Yeah, are there people on the floor who trade stocks that they're not in for customers?
- [60:18]
Graham
Legal restrictions.
- [60:19]
C
It's legal restrictions. I'm a registered broker. I'm not allowed to do that so I can't be in. And also I did not want to go into my job. I'm, I'm a customer guy I like. So if I'm, if I have a position for me, I'm long a thousand shares of, you know, Union Pacific and my customer gives me a million shares to sell. Well, no matter how good I am, it's going to taint the way I, I'm going to, you know. Look, I was on the floor when Jordan Balford came down to the floor and recruited eight brokers. He offered everybody a million friggin dollars to become one of his sulies, one of his front running scum. And eight brokers followed him. Okay, they said, yeah, I'll sell my integrity for you. Right. And what he wanted to do was he wanted to front run orders. He found brokers who had large businesses. They were, there used to be brokers who would stand in, IBM would stand in Berkshire Hathaway and they had all, everybody gave them their orders. They had huge order flow, right? So if I have a billion, it's not, there's no rocket science if I have a billion shares of IBM to buy. Jordan wanted, what Jordan wanted people to do was buy the first 5,000 for him. And then when you're done on a, what's called, on a cleanup at the end of your order, when you're about to buy your last 5,000. Sell my 5,000. That's called front running. So that's what he did. That was one of the things he did. And there were people who are willing to sell their integrity for a million bucks to work for Jordan. They got taken off the floor in handcuffs by the guys in windbreakers. Okay, look, and I'm not a fan of his, I think he's a bad guy. He's still not paid back 80% of the people he took money from. I'm a firm believer in second chances. I'm happy to speak to him. The minute he's done paying every single person back who he did, he makes half a million dollars doing motivational speaking about selling a fraking pen. When little old lady who we took 300 grand from on the last day when he knew he was being indicted has not been paid back yet. So look, they're good people and bad people. I try and be one of the good guys as far as that goes, but you asked me. My best investment was to. I made a deal with myself that I was going to put my kids through school, give them a great education so that they graduated without any debt. I saw so many of their friends who ended up graduating with owing student loans and all that, and it just affected their mind. So that's where I put all everyone said, like you make a good living on Wall Street. Yes. What you do with your money. I put my kids through private school and college and there's a couple million bucks right there.
- [62:43]
Graham
And who's the most effective investor of all time?
- [62:48]
C
Well, you know, they're probably their hedge effective, meaning they did. Their return on investment was the best or. What do you mean by effective?
- [62:55]
Graham
I would say return on investment over, you know, enough time.
- [62:58]
C
Over time, obviously we. We all look up to more Warren Buffett, right? Incredibly smart man, conservative at best in his investments. And you know, he buys companies, right? He doesn't buy stock, he buys. You know, I love. I'm a fan of Marcus Lemonis, you know, who's a. He is a CEO, I believe, of Camping World. And he talks about people, process, product and profitability. The three Ps or the four Ps right. You know, there are smart people. Look, I'm. I'm friends with Kevin O'Leary, another really smart investor. I love Kevin's, you know, the idea that he's a big. A big investor in dividend stocks. Right. He. He has an ETF that are all dividend stocks. Smart investor. Probably Mark Cuban is as well. Bill Ackman, smart investor. Carl Icahn, smart investor.
- [63:51]
Graham
Have you ever met Buffett?
- [63:53]
C
Met Buffett many times. So Warren Buffett used to come to the floor a lot. He would come in and he would stand next to Berkshire Hathaway, which was being run by Jimmy Maguire. Jimmy Maguire, wonderful man, market maker, governor of the stock exchange. He was the only guy who Warren would let trade his stock. Obviously Warren got carte blanche when he came on the floor. He got to do whatever he wanted to. But he was an incredibly sweet, humble man. I saw him actually, you know, like get down on his knee to pick up a pen or something that this young lady had. And he was already too old to be bending over to pick up a pen. But. But he was sweet, he was humble, he was super nice. He is. And yeah, I probably met him four or five times, but before we get.
- [64:35]
Graham
Into that men real talk for a second. We are all afraid of losing our hair. And whether that's a receding hairline, thinning out the crown or just thinning in general, the fear is there. But fortunately there is a solution. And that would be our sponsor, HIMS Hair Loss Solutions, where you could join hundreds of thousands of subscribers who got their flow back.
- [64:50]
Peter Tuckman
Hims offers a 100% online process that provides access to a range of hair loss treatments that work all from the comfort of your couch. Making treating hair loss simple with doctor trusted treatment options and clinically proven ingredients like finasteride and minoxidil that can regrow hair in as little as three to six months.
- [65:07]
Graham
And if swallowing pills is a challenge for you, no problem at all. Because HIMS also has a serum spray and chewable options.
- [65:13]
Peter Tuckman
The process is simple and it's 100% online. Just answer a few questions and a medical provider will determine if treatment is right for you. If prescribed, your treatment will be sent directly to your door.
- [65:24]
Graham
So guys, start your absolutely free online.
- [65:26]
Peter Tuckman
Visit today@hims.comich that's hms.comich for your personalized hair loss treatment options. Or you could click the link down below in the description hims.comich results vary.
- [65:40]
Graham
Based on studies of topical and oral minoxidil. Prescription products require an online consultation with a healthcare provider who will determine if a prescription is appropriate. Restrictions apply. See website for full details and important safety information. Thank you to HIMS for sponsoring this episode. And back to the podcast.
- [65:52]
Peter Tuckman
So I'm curious about this. Do you think the stock market should be open 24 7?
- [65:57]
C
Absolutely not. You know that rumor came out a little while ago and it was a pretty short lived rumor market. You have to realize the old days markets traded from 09:00 to 04:00. Years ago they used to trade and they were closed on Wednesdays way, way back in the day because they had to do all the clearing. Now markets actually are open 24 7, right? So the question would be should the stock market, the New York Stock Exchange be open? Because you can trade s P500 all year, all night long. The, the, the, the, the spread is very wide and after hours trading, people do after hours trading a lot. You know the economic data comes out at 8:30. That tends to jolt the market. People will trade from 8:30 to 9:30 because there's a lot of volatility. However, if people need to realize that the spread is very thin, the liquidity is very thin. But right now you can trade 20. Right. It's just a matter of what instrument you're going to trade. You can trade futures sometimes until till 6 after hours. You can trade S&P524. 7. You can trade a lot of individual stocks after hours as well. So the question would be, should the new year NYSC be open 24 7? No, there's absolutely no reason for that to happen.
- [67:06]
Peter Tuckman
What are your thoughts on cryptocurrency?
- [67:08]
C
You know what cryptocurrency was something that I rejected for a long time. I just thought it was a bunch of hooey. You know, I'm always sort of wavering in my mind because I don't invest, I'm not an investor in markets and I'm sort of restricted in that way. And I kind of, maybe I got angry at it because I didn't invest in it and I, because I missed the boat in it. You know, sometimes you got to wonder, right? Like, did I not, did I not make a bunch of money in that? So I'm going to dis it because I didn't like it or I didn't get invested in it. So I kind of poo pooed it and never really addressed it. And I kind of didn't understand it. I like things I understand, right? And you know, I, obviously it's an entity and you can buy it and sell it and blah, blah, but I didn't get what was behind it. I didn't get how real it was, is it all made up. And you know, I like to be able to see what's behind the curtain. And then, and then I became fascinated by it. And then I, you know, and people started asking me a lot of questions about it. So I had to do research to find out about it. You know, look, I've gotten involved in meme coins and I, you know, I launched an nft, you know, and I'm watching crypto and I'm watching its acceptance across the board. You know, I don't know yet if it is an actual hedge to the market and a hedge to the S P at all or whatnot. I find it fascinating. I still don't know if it's real. You know, there's that great Saturday Night Live skit with Elon Musk where they asked him, what's dogecoin? And he answers it and he, they said, but what is dogecoin? Right? Does anybody really know what the heck bitcoin is or what it is? You know, it's a funny thing about, about, you know, like art. Art is unregulated entity, or it's like people will. What's a coin worth? There are 30,000 meme coins come out every day. Things are worth what people are willing to pay for it. Right? So I'm fascinated by it. I. I think it's. It's become something real because of its acceptance across the board by governments and by entities and by a lot of the big players in the game. And it's something that's gotten my attention and everybody should pay attention to it.
- [69:01]
Peter Tuckman
What are your thoughts on the US Dollar and losing its potential dominance over time? Do you think that's an issue, or do you think that's something that is just overhyped?
- [69:14]
C
You know what? I don't. Look, I'm not an economist, and I don't. It's not really one of my specialties, so I don't really like to speak to things like that. You know, the fact that a lot of the countries around the world are stepping away from the dollar as its main form of currency and standard, it feels a little disappointing. They feel like we're getting ganged up on. I'm not really sure what the mindset is behind. Behind it, so. And I don't know how it will affect the value or the US economy, but look, I'm an American and I love this country. And so when we get ganged up on by guys who I don't think are really nice players and bad actors, I'm not. Not a fan of it.
- [69:51]
Peter Tuckman
How did you get started on Wall Street?
- [69:52]
C
I've had an amazing life, right? My parents. I have. My parents are both Holocaust survivors. They came here in 1949. They fell in love after four years in Auschwitz in camps and came to the States, had me and my brothers, brother. I grew up on the Upper west side here in New York City. I was a bit of a hustler, entrepreneur. All through high school. I had a T shirt company. I was selling it at rock shows, this and that. And I graduated high school in early, early 70s, not to age myself. I've been 55 for 10 years. If you're gonna ask me my age, that's my age. I cap myself out at 55, but I ended up graduating high school. I spent a year in Israel, then I came back to the States and I went to the University of Massachusetts. My love back then was agriculture. I had this dre after I'd been in Israel, I was working on a farm where we were doing a lot of hybriding of plants. And that was, I don't know where it came from. But it was one of my dreams to do something in agriculture. I ended up getting a degree in plant and soil science from UMass, which is one of the top ag schools. And then after a couple of years of that, I realized that was not my future. I have a much older brother. My father, during the war in the camps, adopted this young boy at the age of eight. His parents had been been killed. My grandfather was a well known businessman. He was a. The president of Souchard Chocolate before the war. So in the camps they used to use prominent businessmen to sort of put together prisoners to get them to be efficient and work hard. And my grandfather was asked to put together a factory to build firing pins for the B1 bombers for the Germans.
- [71:27]
Peter Tuckman
Can I ask how they survived the camp camps?
- [71:30]
C
You know what my. If I were to ask my mother that question, she would say a day at a time, you know, they're, they're. Most of the people in their family were. They were gas. They were sent to the gas chambers by Joseph Mengele, who was the death doctor. I mean, I could tell you stories all, all across the board about that. My mother, one of the sole survivors of her family, she had seven, seven siblings. And everybody was sent into the gas chambers at the in by Dr. Mangala, who was known as the gentleman who stood out front the camps. And he did the finger separation where he'd send people to the gas chamber, he would send people to work.
- [72:09]
Peter Tuckman
Is it was that random?
- [72:11]
C
You know what being able to survive. It was random in so many ways. It was a lot of it was luck. My father's written a book called My Stories of Survival where there were these just crossroads. There were times during the war where he could have been killed and something happened, you know, whether it was a God's intervention or what, but there was a lot of it was just random whether you were able to survive the war. It was obviously internal spiritual strength. You know, my mother had two siblings who actually died the day of liberation. So how they survived is really. It's a, it's a, it's a quandry to me. But I would say just, you know, they were really incredibly strong individuals and they, there was some luck there for sure.
- [72:54]
Graham
How did the siblings die on the day of liberation? Was it the eating?
- [72:57]
C
They died of typhus and they died of starvation. So on the day that the Russian forces and the US forces came in to liberate the camps, my mother was sitting in a field with these with two of her sisters, both who were very sick. And one who was just completely emaciated, who was starving to death, and they actually died on that day, you know, and they ended up being carted off to the gas chamber in. My mother, with one other sister were able to walk out of the camps with the. The liberating forces. They ended up going into what was called a displaced person camp, which is where, after the war, they would put all the people who had survived. I mean, think about it. Through Auschwitz. You know, millions and millions of people went through auschwitz, and literally 20, 30,000 actually survived. So they were. You know, the survival rate was very small.
- [73:52]
Graham
I was just going to say, I know this podcast isn't about the Holocaust, but one thing, I mean, we've thrown this out a couple of times. So Graham and I are both ethnically Jewish, I would say is probably the proper term.
- [74:00]
C
Right.
- [74:00]
Graham
And so I've always grown up with, like, a natural curiosity to the Holocaust. Was there anything that your. Your parents, like, told you about it as far as, like, lessons that they learned? Maybe you recognized something in your parents that you didn't recognize in other people that hadn't gone through such a hard, I guess, a few years.
- [74:19]
C
Great question, and I appreciate the question because, yes, it definitely, for everything that they went through and shared with me, formed my whole. My whole nature, my whole being, my whole internal strength and spirit. You know, very many people who survived the war, there are two kinds of people, and I actually wrote a paper about it in college, what effect it had on their. You know, on their ability to deal with life, with religion, with spirituality and whatnot. My parents met, they fell in love, they came to America, had an American dream, had a couple of kids, were very successful, and came out of the war not really believing in God and sort of believed in their own inner strength and spirit. A lot of people who came out of the war, and it really depended on what age you were. My parents were 17 and 18 when the war broke out. So they had finished high, basically high school, beginning of college. People who were a lot younger, who basically, by the time they came to America as immigrants, had missed that period of education, came here and ended up not having a skill, didn't have a job. By the time my father was one of the first Jewish students in a German medical school, he literally sat. There's a. There's an article been written about it. He sat next to SS officers in the Heidelberg Medical School after the war, next to the people who incarcerated him. So, you know, very many people who survived the war sort of were very close they were so scarred emotionally that they didn't talk about it with their children. There is a movement of children, of survivors, right? And, and I've gone to some of these. I'm not a professional kid of a survivor. There are these large groups of people who spend a lot of time together talking about the trauma of it all. And I've seen that there are parents who never discussed it. You know, I have this adopted brother who, my father adopted this young man in the camp and he, I consider him my older brother. He's still alive. He's 92. And there's another great story there because he went on to become a major Wall street titan, which is exciting. And that's why I ended up on Wall Street. But many people came out of it really quiet and really scarred and never talked about it. And some people came out in my house. There was not one night that by the end of dinner, the conversation was not about the Holocaust. My mother used to wake me up at 2 o'clock in the morning and we would sit and watch musicals on TV and she would tell me about the experiences of her, of her incarceration. Stories that were so horrifying, were definitely not, not, not for a prime time and shouldn't have probably been shared with a seven or eight year old, I mean, lying in a, in a stack of cots where there were four or five people in each cot and four levels. And she would wait for the woman next to her to die so that she could steal her shoes and her, and her, her burlap skirt that they gave them, right, because they gave them one, one burlap skirt to wear. Women wore wooden shoes, they wore clogs and basically it was every man for himself, you know, and basically to survive, it took every bit of, you know, resilience. My mother, they were fed turnip peel soup and three day old bread. That was the food that they were served. And my mother used to sell her bread for cigarettes. Okay. She had been a smoker before the war and her mindset was that she couldn't imagine eating a meal without a cigarette, so she preferred to smoke. And at different points during the war, she almost starved to death because of that. But anyway, so I spent my whole life hearing the stories, hearing about their lives. And I think for me, that really, you know, I grew up understanding that it could be worse. You know, I mean, they didn't pound that into me. But you know, I mean, if I would complain about stuff, they would look at me and go, you know, like really, you know, Is that really, you.
- [78:20]
Peter Tuckman
Can'T complain about survival.
- [78:23]
Graham
Can't do that.
- [78:24]
C
Yeah, but they did it in a nice way. And you know, and they said, you know, basically that, that resilience of spirit, that inner, inner strength that we go to when we are going through trauma or we're under a situation that's really difficult is really what makes our, our, you know, our inner core. So, I mean, I could tell you stories about it forever and ever, but you know, they, they went on to be successful. My father was a doctor, became a well known doctor. My mother was his secretary. They were inseparable. They fell in love on a blind date. My father went to have a date. He was in medical school in Heidelberg. After the war, he was set up on a blind date with this woman who, he went to meet her, she got caught on a train. She came home late and her roommate opened the door. That was my mother. And, and, and they fell in love at first sight. They looked at each other.
- [79:16]
Graham
But what does that, how do you do that if you're on a date with another woman?
- [79:19]
C
No, they were, he was on, he was going to have a date with her roommate. She was, she didn't make it home from work on time. So my mother opened the door. Okay. And they, they just, she, they looked at each other and just said, you know, we, we're going to be together. It was like love at first sight. But they went, they are, they ended up becoming incredible, an amazing couple. They did a lot of great things for a lot of people around the world. They bore me and my brother and, and we had an amazing unconditional love childhood. But, you know, there was obviously there was some scar and there was some trauma by being their kid and by hearing these stories at a young age. So while it really, it built me up, you know, spiritually and emotionally with some real strength because down the road I've gone through some, some things on my own that I sort of look back and I kind of had to dig really deep and go, you know, so like, this is the, this is the DNA I come from. And so I'm not going to get tossed around by you know, maybe perhaps petty things.
- [80:23]
Peter Tuckman
Yeah. Was it ever difficult to relate to other kids growing up because of those experiences that you heard about?
- [80:28]
C
You know what I think in retrospect? Yes. At the time I was in it, you know, and you know, I don't think I talked about it with other people. You know, I mean, it was, as I said, there was literally really no dinner table conversation by, by the end of the night where it was not talked about. Right. And the experience they went through and whether, you know, we had friends over or whatnot, I felt separate in a way because of. I came from that experience. And, you know, my parents had numbers branded on their arm and they survived, you know, probably the worst, obviously the worst Holocaust in history. Although there are others that were. Were similarly as bad, but not at least in my experience. Yes. Yeah. I never really thought of it, but in retrospect, that's possible.
- [81:11]
Graham
See, I would love to just continue talking about stuff like this because I'm just wildly curious. And by the way, if you guys want to learn more, I don't. I'm sure you've read Man Search for Meaning, Victor Frankel.
- [81:20]
C
You know, I actually haven't. I'm not a book reader. I haven't read a book since the Cat in the Hat. I've got. My mind is a little spectrum, and so I'm not able to read books. But I've heard of the book and I know it's amazing.
- [81:31]
Graham
Love the book. Highly encourage you guys to read it if you want more insights on what the Holocaust was like from us. Survivor. Fantastic book with a lot of my.
- [81:39]
C
Father'S book, which is called Remember My Stories of Survival. What's amazing about it is it was. It's a small, short vignettes about experiences that he had where literally it was at a crossroads where it would have gone one way, it would have died, and it would have. And. And something happened that made him survive. Just to give one last little story, my grandmother, who unfortunately was murdered by Gestapo. In one of the selections, one night, my grandmother, unbeknownst to my father, sewed a $20 gold piece into the lapel of his jacket. Right. That's kind of. That was a ghetto mentality. Used to do things like that. Because before they were sent to the camps, the way if you read about the Final Solution, and I would imagine it's in that book, the way the Germans got the Jews to really basically end up walking into the camps like sheep to slaughter, as the quote is, is that they would surround them, they would ghettoize them, they would put yellow stars on them. Everyone knew who they were. They would start starving, starbing them or shutting down their businesses, stealing their belongings. They put barbed wire around the neighborhoods where they lived, and slowly, slowly, they isolated them from the rest of society until the point where they finally deported them. It was just like, you know, take me. Let's go. What's the next step in this long Sordid tale. My father went out to steal some food because they were hungry, and he ended up going through one of the cross checks where there was barbed wire. And he ended up. It was late in the middle of the night, and he got caught by a Gestapo and who grabbed him and threw him up against the gates and was going to shoot him. And when he grabbed my father by his lapels of his jacket, he felt something in the jacket, and it was this $20 gold piece that my father, my mother, grandmother had sewn into his jacket. And the guy rips it out and takes it and said, okay. He took the coin and let my father go. So that would have been. He was about to be killed. And that was sort of one of those. So it's these short, little, small stories about where life could have gone really wrong and it ended up going right.
- [83:38]
Peter Tuckman
Do you believe that everything happens for a reason?
- [83:40]
C
Yeah, I do.
- [83:41]
Peter Tuckman
Because of those experiences, it's possible, you.
- [83:44]
C
Know, I mean, the chances of them surviving were so slight, you know, and. And. And as I hear stories like that, and it's happened in my life too, you know, where there are things happen and you know, where you feel like maybe God intervened on your behalf or. Or, you know, coincidence right there. No co. People say they're no coincidence. Things happen for a reason. So, yeah, I kind of do. Yeah.
- [84:07]
Peter Tuckman
Even us meeting was such a crazy story. But Macy.
- [84:10]
C
There you go.
- [84:10]
Peter Tuckman
Macy wanted to visit Wall street, and it just. It happened to be that we were walking down. We finished a podcast right before, so we met up with her, we went down Wall street, and Jack was like, no, the front's over here. And we were going to walk the other way, and we walked down, and sure enough, I see you right out front, and I'm like, I can't believe it's you, because I've seen you on cnbc. I've seen your photos everywhere, where apparently you had sent me an Instagram message years ago that I just. I just missed by mistake. And now here we are because of that, had we not gone in the exact time.
- [84:40]
C
I love that. And when it happens, it feels so good and it so can be so right. So, yeah.
- [84:44]
Peter Tuckman
Yeah, I agree. So going back to your older brother, his impact on you getting into Wall street, how did that come about?
- [84:51]
C
Okay, second year of college, he called me up and he had been a big part of my life growing up, and he said, enough of this, you know, this agriculture crap. You're going to wal. I want you to get into finance. You're Going to be great at it, and I'll help you out. And so it wasn't him. It was his sort of pushing me that made me do it. But I ended up getting a degree in international Business and finance at UMass. I came back to New York after that. I registered at Baruch to get an MBA. I was getting an MBA during the day. I was the doorman at Studio 54 at night. And. And that was it. And I did. Oh, and I was trading commodities. That was my first inroad into trading.
- [85:32]
Peter Tuckman
What sort of commodities are you trading?
- [85:33]
C
I was trading orange juice futures, lumber and potatoes. And it was just kind of arbitrary. I. It was something I got. I got into back in the old days. Used to get the Wall Street Journal, and they would have the quotes for all the commodities. So orange juice, soybeans, all those kind of things. And I just started reading it, and it just seemed fascinating to me. He was big on. On Wall street, hard Harvey. So I knew that, and I started trading them. He had given me a couple thousand, 3,000 bucks, actually. I think maybe it was bar mitzvah money. And so I tapped into that. I started trading orange juice futures, and I ended up turning the $3,000 into 45 grand.
- [86:10]
Peter Tuckman
How do you do that, trading orange juice?
- [86:12]
C
You know. Well, you know what? I. I guess I had a good strategy. I developed a strategy which served me well in my. In my new life. But I don't know, you know, it was a long time ago.
- [86:24]
Graham
Technical analysis.
- [86:25]
C
You know what, it wasn't actually technical analysis. You know, the way, if you go back to the old newspapers, the way the futures trade in orange juice, they give you the futures price. Now it's based on, obviously, weather and all these other things, right? And so if you go back to trading places, right, that great movie where there was a. There was a. The Mr. Beaks. You know the movie, I'm sure.
- [86:44]
Peter Tuckman
Yes, in New York, same story with.
- [86:47]
C
New orange juice futures. So anyway, I got on the right side of a trade. I ended up making a bunch of money and I lost it in one day. I spent four months building this great portfolio from 3,000 to 45 grand. And I lost it in. In a debacle over actually in orange juice freeze. And I couldn't get out of the market and I ended up losing it all. All that being said, I. I left New York. That was 1980, 81. Life had gotten a little bit crazy. I don't need to elaborate too much. It was the 80s. It was new York City. I was. It out at Studio 54 and I realized maybe I should get out of town. I never finished my degree at the MBA. I got probably 10, 10 credits away from completing it. And I had a friend who was running a oil company in, in Norway and they were spending two years in West Africa doing exploration. Off the coast of Benin was the name of the country. And so I went there and I spent a year and a half there doing the accounting for this normally Norwegian oil company. After a year and a half there, it was time to put on my big boy pants once again. My brother called, called me and said, let's go get back to New York. It's time to get a real job. So I came back to New York and I got a summer internship. I st on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. My father had a patient who was the market maker in AT&T and he and one patient who was a partner at Cowan & Co. Which was a big brokerage firm back then. They gave me a Summer internship on May 23, 1985. And the minute I walked onto the floor, I knew it was for me. It was chaotic. It was wild, adrenaline filled. It was super exciting. It was full of humans. And I, I'm also. That was what I inherited from my dad was that love for the human element in life.
- [88:34]
Graham
I, I got a question.
- [88:35]
C
Yeah.
- [88:36]
Graham
So the hair, what's the plan with the hair? Are you going to keep it, growing it out? Are you good? Like why this? I, this. I don't mean for this to be offensive at all. Why not a toupee, you know? Yeah.
- [88:49]
C
Well, first of all, no toupee, it's your base are just ridiculous.
- [88:53]
Graham
Well, people would also know, I guess because they've seen your face so much that like you don't just grow hair like that.
- [88:59]
C
I'm a purist. Right, right. I like, I, I'm a short, funny looking guy with wild hair and I gotta own who I am. Right. I don't want to be anybody but me. I'm happy with me, you know, and so that's cool. I love my hair. My hair is my power. Right. You know, I'll show you a picture because I just found it but I used to have 18 inches. I had an 18 inch ponytail. I still have it somewhere in a box. I was known for a massive mane of hair I had from the age of, you know, from 18 on because I cut my hair off in one fell swoop when it was literally down to my waist. I had, I was known as the longest. I had the Longest hair on Wall street for the longest, longest time. Finally, everybody came up to me and said, pete, it's about time you got to. You got to cut that stuff down. And I said, fine, you guys know me better. You raised $25,000 for charity, and I'll shave my head on the floor. I said it kind of flippantly. Two days later, they handed me 25 grand in cash. You're shaving it, bro. And we used to have a. A guy named Luigi, who was a. The barber shop guy, on the floor of the stock exchange, who had a beautiful little old Italian barber shop. He didn't speak any English, with the big chair with the leather and the bronze and the copper. You know, like if you've ever been an old, old barber shop, right? Had a barbershop thing. And we all went there and we filmed it and we. They shaved my head, and there's a photo of me with the shaved head. And I gave the money to UNICEF and a couple of other children's charities. And it was a big thing. So I love my hair. It's a big part of my power. You know, I. There was a guy named Mark Haynes who worked for cnbc, used to sit out. He passed away recently. The person who nicknamed me the Einstein of Wall street was Erin Burnett. She is a CNN reporter. She works. She used to work on the floor. Marc Haines was her co host. He used to sit outside the stock exchange smoking a cigarette on the Johnny Pump there. And every day I would walk into work and he would say, if Tuckman's having a good hair day, the market's going to be up. And we used to track it, and it was true, right? It was sort of a funny coincidence. So I feel very strongly, my. That my. That my hair is a big part of my personality. I love it. You know, I. My wife recently passed away, unfortunately, from cancer. And she. In 2019, she got cancer. We got rid of it, came back in 21, and unfortunately, it killed her. She. Next week will be a year since she passed away. She ended up having chemotherapy and she lost all her hair. And in. In solidarity for her one day when she called me and said, I'm starting to lose my hair. I got to go get a wig. I shaved my head and I went to the barber shop and I shaved my head and I came into work and. And nobody knew. I had not told anyone she was sick. So everyone's going, like, what? What did you do? And they ended up. I told them what had happened, and it made a big splash it got on CNN that you know that, that you know, we know how important Peter Tuckman's hair is to him and obviously his wife is more important to him than his hair. So I had, you know, and it took a while. It actually took so I shaved it to the bone and it felt great because the two of us had shaved heads. She shaved her head too because she had lost most of the hair. And so the two of us walked around for like a year and change with she, she wore a wig which I bought her a wig which she raised, barely wore. And so the two of us were like the bold duo and I looked different, completely different.
- [92:25]
Peter Tuckman
Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. I'll link to all of your information down below in the description. I appreciate it's been such an honor.
- [92:30]
C
I really appreciate honor for me too. Thanks guys.
- [92:33]
Peter Tuckman
Till next time.