Wall Street takes the brightest people and
smashes them into the pavement on a regular basis. There’s only one bottom line on Wall Street
and that bottom line is how much money you make. This is one of the most stressful jobs on
earth. You have stress every single second. Not everybody can survive. Arrogance, greed, corruption - these are all
traps when you work on Wall Street. Whatever your background was – it’s can
you make money? Can you contribute to profitable ideas? GUY DeCHIMAY Hedge Fund Manger:
You should wake up in the morning with an immediate feeling of dread no matter what
and that is simply because if you know what you’re doing, you realize that it might
really be fleeting. Being a woman on Wall Street, I think it has
it’s good parts and bad parts. Oftentimes you still feel it’s a little
bit of a boy’s network. Sometimes you’re not being taken as seriously
because you wear a skirt and makeup. There are two major things in Wall Street
on how to make money. The first is mind your own business and the
second is discipline. A lot of our clients look to us to make them
money but also to be something of an insurance policy if the market really gets nasty. Yesterday the market was nasty and we had
a very good day. There are two numbers I don’t think I’ll
forget. One is 15 and that is the age that I moved
out of my parent’s house. The other is 27 and that’s the age I retired. It’s about making money but you have to
have discipline, you have to be clairvoyant, you have to be obsessed and fearless. When Guy was managing money in a loft in SOHO
he was knocking it out of the park and no one knew he existed and now he has an office
in a mid-town hi-rise and his performance has been off the charts, putting in the top
5% of managers. We are investors in U.S. equities only and
we are a long shore fund which means we are basically making bets, if you will, on stock
prices going up and stock prices going down. We trade for both our personal equity as well
as that of institutional funds and high network investors. Alrighty, we’ve got a lot of money to put
to work so we’re going to put some of it to work today. I have always worked on getting one degree
upon another to show that I’m actually well accomplished. I did feel under pressure to prove that. You have to have a certain resilience for
Wall Street. It gets stressful here usually around the
open - which is at 9:30 Eastern time. There’s usually some information that has
come to light over night. Mitchell. What? Are you going to be good in school today? Yes. You sure? Yes. And what are you going to do? I’m going to learn things. Do you want to be like our dad – a day trader? Yes, I want to get a million dollars. You want a million dollars? Yes. That’s a good one. How about two million? Oh, oh. There’s five million Five million? Ok. But you know what needs to be done in order
to make this kind of money, right? I’m thinking. It’s actually very simple. You gotta start in high school and have good
grades and then try to go to college. And then hopefully you’ll get a good job
and work long hours… Yeah. And then you’ll be better than anyone else. It’s the same as in trading – what your
daddy do . Alex came to the country about 10 years ago
and he had a degree in Finance from Moscow. His dream was to work on Wall Street and he
found out very early on that his degree wasn’t worth anything in the U.S. He felt that he
could beat the market. Seven years later and no losing months, he
is on his way to becoming a star. Alex hasn’t had a losing month since 1999 It’s right here. The New York Stock Exchange. JILL:
There’s a cliché. You eat what you kill, and that’s very much
the culture of Wall Street. Waking up and feeling like you’re on a hunt. SANDY:
I work for an asset management company that has about 6 billion dollars under management. I have to be at work at 8 o‘clock and be
pretty much bright-eyed and bushy-tailed because I cover European markets. By the time that I get to the office, they
are just coming back from their lunch break. PARKER:
Hey Christina, the coffee machine has gone wacko. You’ll find no quarter in the coffee machine. My title – uh, President, we’re not big
on titles here. CHRISTINA (Chief Operating Officer):
Parker is, uh, he runs the show and then Mike is the analyst and pretty much anything that
Parker wants done I execute. MIKE (Analyst):
I analyze primarily bio-tech companies that research and develop pharmaceuticals. PARKER:
Hey, Mike. MIKE:
Yeah? PARKER:
Gotta second on IE? As a hedge fund we can do things that your
traditional mutual fund can’t do - we can use leverage if we want to. At a dollar? I mean, fuck. Also, we can short sell which means you are
betting on the security price going down. Hey, Christina, short 10,000 (BLEEP). Leverage: using borrowed money to increase
potential return Short sell: Selling borrowed stocks high,
buying them back and returning them low, and pocketing the difference
CHRISTINA: Can you please short 10,000 (BLEEP) for me? PARKER:
The risks associated with a short are much higher. If you’re going short a 100 dollar stock,
the most you can make is 100 dollars and the most you can lose is infinite. So, it’s a little bit more intense emotionally
and that’s why a lot of people don’t like the business. PARKER:
Technically Wall Street is a street down in southern Manhattan. On the corner of Wall Street and Broad is
the New York Stock Exchange. But what is Wall Street in the more figurative
sense, it’s the biggest financial market in the world. The siren song of money can get so alluring,
it’s highly competitive with extraordinarly intelligent people. SANDY:
There’s a lot of competition and you need to do everything to stay ahead of the pack. GUY:
Out of 21 months, we’ve had one down month and we would like to not have any more down
months. ALEX:
For me, this is a 24-hours-a-day job. I can not come home and say to my wife “this
month I did not make money”. PARKER:
I’m hear to make money. Let’s be real straight about this. GUY:
It’s the holy grail. How do you take the lowest risk and get the
highest return? BOB (Floor Trader):
We’re here at the American Stock Exchange where in 1987, as everyone knows, the market
crashed. On that Monday afternoon, as I was standing
doing my job in one of the training pits you see below me, one of the brokers who was trying
to get the attention of another broker actually bit me in the shoulder because I was in his
way. I stood there stunned. It’s a true story. The Hamptons
RICHARD (Manager Acquisition): It’s one of the hardest things for me to
explain - what I do. I represent on one side some of the richest
investors on the planet and on the other side we try to find undiscovered managers who we
hope will be the next super star. It’s an art discovering some of these managers
because, for the most part, they like to remain below the radar. I would say 9 out of 10 are going to fail. CHRIS:
This is all we’ve got so far that we’ve got over on the short side. GUY (Hedge Fund Manager):
Well, that’s not enough. Basically, I sit down with my trader and we
go through – what do we have in the book? And, what do we think we’re going to need
to do today? Do we want to add to positions? Do we want to cut positions? CHRIS (Senior Trader):
We want to wait on the positions of these two, right? GUY:
We want to wait for them to open and stabilize at a tempting target but we’ve been burned
too badly on those two in the past. Guy decides on the strategy and Chris executes
it CHRIS:
Ok, let’s hold off on those. GUY:
So, it is a “no go” for the moment. Now here on the other hand, check our stock
on that and see whether or not. We can’t. Yeah, no, we have to high of an exposure? That’s fun. It’s always something, isn’t it? There is a lot of risk in the market right
now so we’re going to be very, very careful about what we do. CHRIS:
If I can talk to trading and penetrate them and guide them as I’m doing it as well. GUY:
No, the way to do it is to open and stabilize. We’ve got two minutes. You’ve got enough bid here for the time
being. We can ease our way into all of it. The markets open. What’s gonna happen is we’re going to
have a flood of orders. Anybody who was short yesterday and thought
they were going to have follow through might be nervous though what you end up with is
a very funky move in the beginning of the day. You see that reprice right now? It’s all over the place. You want to get in and get those positions
on. It’s at the flat line right now. 9:30 A.M. Reprice: stock options of corporate executives
being exchanges to the current market price RICHARD:
When Guy’s working on a trade, you’ll never get his attention. He just has laser focus and he’ll remain
in these positions until he takes his pound of flesh out of the market. GUY:
Hold ‘em. CHRIS:
Ok. JILL (Analyst – retired):
All retiring means is that you don’t have to work and the secret to that is creating
enough assets for you to support yourself. I worked at a consumer sector focus fund. I love to meet with the managements of the
companies, build financial models, analyze their businesses and pick stocks. Ok, I’m going to get them both. Right now I’m in the process of starting
my own hedge fund. To start a hedge fund, there’s a lot that
has to happen. You have to have a strategy and you basically
have to build a team before you’re in business. Day 1 and investor gives you money, they expect
you to start performing Day 2. Jill retired six months ago
Jill now spends her time investing her money Jill made most of her money in restaurant
and gaming stocks PARKER:
Another guy resigned. MIKE:
The Board ousted the primary CEO. PARKER:
The mad scientist. Short sellers often look for companies that
have problems and bet against them MIKE:
The mad scientist. PARKER:
Right now we are pausing on acting because we’re worried about the new guy’s resignation
CHRISTINA: Ok, I’ll tell you might big pet peave. It’s like when you are a company, you’re
trying so hard to, let’s say, you’re making a product and then you see how all of the
analysts are betting on whether or not the company’s going to do right or wrong. I’d rather be the company who’s actually
making something than being the weaselly analyst who’s actually predicting whether or not
something is going from A to B. And I don’t want to say weaselly. Ok, maybe take out weaselly. Yeah, sometimes I feel that it’s more honest
to be the – honest is not the great word – scratch all that – scratch, scratch. I’d rather be the person who’s actually
making it happen versus you betting whether or not something is going to go up or down. PARKER:
There is a nepharious image that short sellers are betting on destruction and loss of wealth
and we don’t want to have people profitting from other people’s loss. There are some countries that don’t allow
short selling. France, you can’t short sell in France. I think that’s really short-sided. Short selling serves a really important public
purpose. Short sellers are often ferreting out information,
uh, that companies are trying to hide. What’s the deal with (BEEP) on the late
filing? It’s just their slow? Who’s the CFO there? And you think he’s competent? A healthy market is one where in information
is broadly disseminated and honestly disseminated. There’s a shadenFreud also to Wall Street,
even among so-called friends, it’s only the Germans who can really come up with this
word. It’s the joy and revelment of seeing somebody
else fail. Short sellers were blamed for the crash of
1929 Short sellers helped expense the Enron scandal
SANDRA (Lawyer/Deal Maker): This is Sandra, can I please talk to Carl? I just got a call from a client. Hold on one second please. (SPEAKS GERMAN) I was born in Germany in a
small town, a middle-class family as a daughter of an Iranian father and German mother. (SPEAKS GERMAN) And nothing ever indicated
that I would actually make it to New York City down the road because it’s really a
long shot, especially considering that I studied law, but it was always my dream to one day
make it to the United States. You know the morning passes very quickly. I get a lot of phone calls, e-mails. Most of them I tend to um answer right away,
and to get them out of the way. “To be able to increase or leverage, be
a little more aggressive.” I help make deals. We raise capital from primarily institutional
investors and then we structure funds, put that money in there and we manage it for them. A fund is kind of a shell of where the securities
are being put into. I mean the minimum is going to be $50 million
and we want to ramp up pretty quickly up to $250, $500. Some deals are really sexy. Sometimes, it’s exciting to close the deal. A lot of energy and testosterone comes together. Ever so often though, you want to feed your
mind with some other stuff to maintain and expand other dimensions. For instance, I took up a quantum physics
in my spare time. It’s for non-scientists though. It’s not mathematical, but it’s very interesting
and you know, if you work on Wall Street it can tend to be a little one-sided and so you
want to feed your brain something else for a change. Institutional Investor: organizations (such
as pension funds) that trade stocks in large quantities
RICHARD: It’s interesting that we’re all working
with the same data. We all have the same earnings, forecasts reports,
but the incredible thing about Alex is. He reads the way the market interprets that
data. He gets in synch with the market. ALEX (Day Trader):
At the age of 22, I came to the United States. First three years I spent as a cab driver. Then I got into the Wall Street, got my licenses,
and became a day trader. How I make my money, I do a lot of charts. I probably go through 700 to 800 charts. Did they go up? How did they finish? This one happened to go (point at upward curve
on chart on monitor) – it was a huge turnaround. So what I will do, I will by a basket of gold
and steel and see what it’s going to do. Nicky, what’s up? We probably do 500 to 1,000 trades a day. We care what’s going to be in the next 30
seconds, a minute, 2 minutes and a variety of different intervals. And there’s maybe 10,000 people like we
are. So figure out every time I’m by the computer,
I’m competing against a person like me. If you made money today, somebody else has
lost it. Day traders can pay large commissions for
executing so many transactions in a day ALEX:
I’m looking to get in. ALEX:
Probably would make much more money than I’m making right now but taking much more significant
losses and be more volatile – probably be up $10,000, be down $10,000 – but this is
not my style. Every month you have to be up, you have to
get a paycheck. All of this is about $2 million shares. It’s going to be a nice come back. This is a fast-making decision. This is like a police, you either take a shot
or you’re gonna get shot. Day traders buy here; sell there. Hedge funds buy here, try to sell here. Big investment, buy here; hold to sell there. But we’re all here for the same. This is our job. Buy low; sell high. It is estimated that 80-90% of day traders
lose money Day trading can be mentally and psychologically
challenging due to split-second decision making PARKER:
Aahha. I see somebody got this thing to work. There are things that I really like about
Wall Street and there are things that I really don’t like about Wall Street. The great thing about it, it really is a melting
pot. There is ameritocracy to it. Maybe that’s too big a word. But it’s based off of merit usually. He changed his name to inherit money. Oh my God, the shame of it. What I don’t like about Wall Street is there’s
too much of an urgency on this exact moment. Whipping in and out of stocks; pace it a little
bit more. This is a marathon; not a bunch of win sprints. ANDREW BARBER (Writer, “Trader Monthly”):
On Wall Street, there are two different sides of the street. There’s the buy side and the sell side. The difference really is easy to understand. If you’re on the sell side, you’re angry
at the guy you’re talking to, you have to slam down the phone before you say “fuck
you”. If you’re on the buy side, you get to say
“fuck you”, then hang up the phone. GUY:
Patience. Patience is what counts here. Gotta be able to take advantage of that dip
a little bit. Hey Chris, I want you to hold on that Apple
trade. We’ve got three minutes. This is like being an air traffic controller
at times. It is as stressful as it comes. You might think you are on to something – 4
percent so instead of 5 percent. CHRIS:
Gotcha. GUY:
Then it starts moving away from you. It’s going to find it’s line at 150. You’re not in control of the information. You’re not in control of the market. CHRISTINA:
It’s much like an ER so you never know what’s going to hit you. If the timing is right, everything will happen
at once. PARKER:
Four months. CHRISTINA:
True, but you have to understand that the reports that we just did were never requested
before. GUY:
I’m going to give them one day and in one day it doesn’t happen, I’m going to encourage
them to sell because I’m really paranoid. ALEX:
Stress is the biggest challenge on Wall Street. You’re a day trader, a hedge-fund manager,
you’re an institutional trader, anything on Wall Street is a huge stress. GUY:
It has a tendency to burn people out. PARKER:
There’s nobody that has been around for any period of time that hasn’t had many
sleepless nights, thinking what the hell did I just do and the person that hasn’t had
that sleepless night, I wouldn’t trust him with a dime because they are too cock sure. GUY:
When guys start to believe that they are invincible. The moment before they’re about to take
a beating. SANDRA:
The moment that you are stressed and under pressure, that’s when you have to perform. 4:30 P.M. GUY:
Aahh. So today, for the moment, it is a profitable
day. Pick up 40 bips. You can never rest on your laurels here. It’s really important to be humble because
the market will humble you in an instant. There’s an old expression that the market
has a paddle big enough to give anyone a spanking. ALEX:
For me, the days over at 4:00. I come tomorrow as a fresh man. Another day; another money. You can not walk away from this business. All the people when they try to make money,
what they are trying to do with it. They are trying to invest. It’s a circle. You love what you do and this is the kind
of job which produces a nice income which you can put enough money away so you can wisely
invest and support the beautiful lifestyle. That is what Wall Street is all about - money. JILL:
For me money is just a tool to live the life I want to live. My father made a lot more money than my mother
did. When I was 11 years old, they divorced. That had a huge impact on me because a lot
of his salary went with him. It made me determine that I would not find
myself dependent upon someone else to support me. PARKER (Hedge Fund Manager):
The other aspect of the job does involve a lot of travel which for better or for worse,
can affect your personal life and family. No, I’m taking a client, um I’m taking
‘em for golf actually. We’ll be back Monday. GUY:
If you don’t have a real love for what you do here, you’re not going to survive. Even my wife says it to me, at times, “why
don’t you just stop”, and um you know, I suppose the question is stop and then do
what? PARKER:
You can’t let your own biorhythms and self worth and happiness be completely governed
by the volatility at the table. I’ve seen people get seriously manic depressive
that weren’t necessarily prone to that and they just couldn’t handle the ups and downs
of their portfolios. I think a lot of Wall Street’s success is
timing which itself can be a function of luck. Um, but I guess it was Napoleon that said
“bring me the lucky candles” because sometimes you make your own luck. RICHARD:
Sandy is an incredible networker. Her legal abilities and her communicative
skills make her – and her look – make her incredible and different. Everyone wants to sign a contract with Sandra. I mean reality is she is gorgeous, when she
comes into a room, you say “what the fuck is she doing here”. But never underestimate Sandy. Because she’ll know the facts. Sandy is brilliant. SANDRA:
When I came over, you know I knew very few people and I started from scratch. Networking. RICHARD:
Sandy is helping me search and identify undiscovered super star managers. SANDRA:
We are going to the American Counsel in Germany’s awards dinner tonight. It’s a great place to network and meet people. There will be a lot of important business
people, corporate people, Wall Streeters. How this works? “So, lovely to see you again, but I don’t
want to keep you. Let’s circulate.” The table is about $25,000 so be on the ball. If you go there, make the most of it. SANDRA:
Networking is really key because you cannot survive in this business by just sitting behind
your desk. I’m very happy where I’m at now but would
like to keep on growing and part of that maybe transitioning further away from just putting
together deals to manager selection. SANDRA:
Thank you. SANDRA:
When I came here, there were instances when I felt lonely because I was so wrapped up
in work. You know I didn’t have that many friends. Thank you. A downside to being a successful woman is
that your always working and before you know it another year has passed. Another three years have passed and then you
get another great offer and so you kind of get a little bit side tracked. That may have happened a little bit in my
case. SANDRA:
Well, enjoy dinner and hope to see you soon again. Bye. SANDRA:
I mean it’s never too late. I’m still looking forward and hopefully
starting a family. That would be most important to me. This Season On WALL STREET WARRIORS
RICHARD: I think wedding proposals are going to be
your biggest challenges. SANDRA:
Oh. TIM:
I just got a million dollars. SANDRA:
(Running at beach) ALEX:
I love America. Guy on horse:
These are all Wall Streeters. It’s about being number one. BOB:
The markets sold off about 50 points in about 10-15 minutes. TIM:
I’m losing money! CREDITS:
GUY: Oh right, we’re going in hi-def (primps
hair) SANDRA:
Thank you. ALEX:
(Crossing street) PARKER:
It was a conference call with a company. I guess one of the guys on the call – I
know who it was – hear him on the mike a “bullshit, bullshit” everytime the CEO
would open his mouth so.
