The 25th of August 1987 was peak market
Pre-crash of October 87. Yeah, I
Knew absolutely
nothing
Yeah, so let's start right at the beginning August of
1987 when you got your start in the markets, yeah, take it away from there, man
The SP at 340 gold under 500 and US 10-year yields at 9%
So yeah fun times in in London
So, you know teenager coming out of school. How old?
Seventeen seventeen year. I tied to a desk. Yeah. Well, not not not quite of course, but as close as you can get and
And it wasn't on a desk and you weren't on the phones because there weren't enough phones for everybody
You weren't in front of screens because there weren't enough screens for everybody
So you had to work your way up and that was and that was that was post
Big Bang in London
There was some real jobs and real people in London in there in in those mid 80s and you guys started rounding the buy-side
Correct. I did get started on the buy side
I was very lucky and there were some people that
Decided to take a bit of a punt on someone that was fairly good with numbers
That happened to be me
Yeah, it was it was a really fun time the 25th of August 1987 was peak market
Pre-crash of October 87. Yeah, I
Knew absolutely. Nothing and everybody around me was busy and they were busy learning. They were busy trading. They were busy
Assets allocating
Mm-hmm, and then August of eighties and after August of 87 in October of 87
we came up with a bit of a crash and those days were amazing because when you know,
Nothing you learn everything. Yeah
So through the days in London, there was the hurricanes in 87
Lloyd's of London was basically was touch and go whether they were going to be around
They had massive losses the crash of 87 in the US stock market and there was one particular day
I remember it I turn around to a colleague of mine
really senior great great asset manager
a mature man through my said
So yesterday we were buying but today we're not can you explain that?
and he politely asked me to sit down and
And buy my own business for a minister out of the way for that's right. Yeah, that's right. So it was 87
So now you're you're in the middle of a firing lines
There is a market crash that takes the S&P down 22 percent or so. Um, and we probably
Wallowed around those levels for the next year or two before I guess the SP broke out again in 1990
But what stuck with you from back then?
What lessons did you pull away from being in such a volatile market with such little education at the time?
Because I know all of that gets flipped on its head to where we are today. Right? Right. That's really interesting
What do you learn from 87?
You learned from really smart people in 87 to
keep calm
that
If you can keep your head while all about are losing theirs, you're going to be just fine
mmm, and that's really difficult to do in
high volatility
Environments. Yeah, but that's what I learned from 87. That's a very good point
so from there you started making observations on markets taking them very seriously and
Picking up some tools into your toolkit as you grow right as a trader
So into the early 90s, we kick the decade off with a war in the Gulf
We start moving into the very very beginning of the internet boom the infancy stages
I would say in the early 90s 92 93
Tell me about your experience on the buy side as a young now someone in your early 20s going into that experience, right so
1990 you've got Gulf War one and
the experience from 87 takes you in to go for one because when we started to
rise in volatility in 1990 you
Could turn around to me. Let's say I've seen worse
So all of a sudden you weren't panicking anywhere near as much as you were in 87 fast forward into now
You've you've got catching a bit of a wave of a bull market from 91
two three and in 294
So now you're in 294 and you start getting an IPO calendar that is taking flight
So every day every week you've got these red herrings coming through the post
And you're having to read these red herrings
there's no email and you're placing orders to buy these IPOs and
Every day, there's more IPOs
Now the history history has told you if you could sit through
87 through 1990 and 91 you were in a bonanza
Situation in 94 and into 95. Yeah fast forward you start getting into the fed
cheap money
Greenspan doing everything that he can do to calm everybody then Greenspan turns around and says irrational exuberance
And you think the bubble is burst. Mmm-hmm far from it. Yeah, exactly
So we keep going and we keep going. We're in 297
Sign is delivering everything to your house already
Well, yeah. Yeah gardening with books and CDs
But we're getting there right then
The real trades are if you can hang on to the bull market in the US your real trades are
Being driven by currencies and being driven by rates
So with Russia having its troubles in 97 the US didn't care as in the US stock market really didn't care
right fast forward 98 and
LTCM blows up, right
So the lesson of 97 into 98 is as much as you think it matters in Russia
It doesn't matter until it's on your doorstep. And your doorstep was LTCM in 98
which was
Another episode of if you can keep your head while all about are losing theirs you were in great shape
right because then you road late 98 into 99 into
Early 2003 so now were you were you?
Actively. Do you recall yourself?
Thinking about your first days as a trader and the stock market sort of crashing back then back in October of 87
You know, are you worrying about this the whole time? Are you seizing your opportunities on all new tips and stuff?
You should say that that's so true in your first
Experiences you always think they're going to be replicated very soon. Right and it's
Good to have that as a mental record
but it's fatal for being able to trade correctly because you miss your opportunities, right and
That's when you try to gauge
When you have opportunities, are you in a bull cycle?
Are you in a bear cycle or asset prices going up? Our asset price is basically going down
By the way, asset prices going down might mean asset prices are just flat right which is what we have now
so the markets are rallying ferociously into
9899 toward the dot-com bubble which we haven't gotten to yet, but in 1999
I know you made a tremendous life decision to change time zones life centers and everything right? You tell me
What was that about?
How did you pick yourself up from being so entrenched in the markets in London and saying okay, we're going overseas
Yeah, that's that's interesting. So early 99 I get a call from the company and company in New York Sanford Bernstein and they
they basically asked me do you want an adventure and I thought to myself I've traded us now for
99 probably eight years. I've been
observant of the market now for twelve
If you want to be in the lion's den
For us equity trading you have to be in New York
So I said I'd love to be part of that adventure
they were kind enough to say we'd love to have you and
If I came from London to New York now the interesting thing about moving
Countries and a lot of your viewers will see this a lot of people will will understand what I'm saying is it's damn difficult
I can imagine it's damn difficult
So the people that you thought that you knew well in a city of any time could be twenty four million people
You you know 212 million here twenty four in the tri-state area
You actually don't know anyone. It can be the loneliest experience. So what that teaches you is
Take everything
One step at a time. Don't cross bridges. You don't need to cross
Until you're asked across them because there's too much to take on board
It's a big city you're being asked to be a professional in a professional firm in a professional setting
where quite frankly you're the underdog
And you have to understand you're the underdog and you have to fight
Again, and again not only with the market, but with the people that are in, New York
It's you it you almost feel it you versus the world
But you can't take on the world at once you have to do it one step at a time. It was a huge life lesson
It's one step at a time trying to do anything. Well
Take steps. Yeah, and that was a huge lesson for me
You