The Easiest Time To Invest is NOW.

Greetings and welcome to Inside Baseball with Old Chestnut. I'm Liam Allen with my friend Morris Sachs. How you doing, MB? I'm doing great, man. Great to see ya. Did you stay up for that? Tell the truth. Um I stayed up for most. Um the previous nice did not engage me apparently to the same level it had you hooked. I enjoyed it. Um, I stayed up for the whole thing and yeah, dude, they played all my favorite songs back to back to back to back. Um

But last night I went to sleep at the set break and I missed the whole second set. I missed that for the encore and then the secret fifty minute set afterwards. I'm not staying up until twelve thirty. No, we're not kids. No. But uh I'm gonna um watch that this afternoon. Bingo. Bingo. That's why I had no problem. I'll I'll wake I'll watch it after the show. Yeah. Once we get this in the can, it's uh I'm mailing it in the rest of the weekend. So good, good, good. Interesting week.

I told you I was afraid it wasn't gonna take. Um and we are we're we're back, we're back. The SP has rallied back to where we started two weeks ago. Um But yeah, what was interesting to you? You tell me, you talk. Well, I Problem when you produce four hundred episodes over Some number of years, even though it is the number one financial podcast out there, it's tough not to repeat things, but I think. There were things that happened last week which I would like to emphasize.

is sort of a cock of the walk, but just to prove you know, proof of concept, right? So every week We urge caution and I'm sure there's chuckles in the background. And You know, every once in a while that turns out to be prophetic. And you know, one of my big a boos is not shorting volatility. And um I think it was last week, I forget what night, maybe it was last Saturday or Sunday, Cheryl woke me up and said, you know, the Nikkei's down like

80% or something like that. And I'm like, get the fuck out. She goes, no, she's like down like seven, eight. And and it was right, right? And and all hell broke loose. And then I had that we had the emergency podcast. Which I think is up for an Emmy. Yeah. Um, by the way. And um We had the discussion with life coach Leslie Harris about what to do with those options and worked out pretty good. But I want to reinforce a couple of these things.

Which I've told you ad nauseum, I have no issue about being flat. And this is the perfect example because You know, the puts were nothing more than just dumb luck, okay? But you know, luck is where preparation meets opportunity. Um But um they crushed a lot of the preferred shares in the panic selling. And I bought a lot of them. And a day later they went up. And I punched him out. And that was yielded a result, as the British would say. Then a day later, they took him back down.

And I brought them all back, but... I had made the mistake of bragging to some friends about my uh great trading. And when I realized my faux pas, I called my broker and I said, wherever I sold that last bunch, I want you to punch these out. And she's really? I said, yeah, I'm not in this for a long time, just a good time. Because I was afraid that, you know, Icarus who had flown too close to the sun, right? That kind of thing.

Um I do want to mention the brokers because my my un understanding from chatter around the water cooler in the office is some people were wondering what broker old chestnut uses. And after discussion with legal, we feel it would be an SEC violation to mention their name. Now, if you're astute. You could probably figure out who they are. But they're not a discount broker. He I I think their fees are fair.

I love doing business with them. I've done business with them for 20 years. But it reminds me of our good friend Lorenzo Griffo, who said everybody hates the cops till you need one. Everybody loves a discount broker till there's a problem. And apparently, uh via Twitter, some of the traders were moaning with some of the fills they got. And, you know.

There's a reason you're not paying full bore on the commission side. And um, you know, I'm genetically predisposed to paying as little in commission as possible. But I think we've cobbled out a fair rate. And so uh I didn't have any trouble getting executed in a timely manner with proper reports. And uh all over the phone. All over the phone. All over the phone. Yeah. We do email Phil's because

At my advanced age, it's easier to have it in writing so I can refer back to it. And this is someone who you've been on a first name basis with that you have a relationship with for how many years? Well it's north of twenty. Yeah, yeah. So in fact I wanted to bring something up. This is such an old line Greenwich firm.

They have an office on Greenwich Avenue near the Christian Science Monitor reading room. Wow. And you know those old buildings in Greenwich with the steep staircase? Yeah. So. For those of you who are rock climbers, they rate climbing grades, both in terms of difficulty and safety. Difficulty is on a decimal system starting at 5.0, going up to 512, and then a safety like P. R X. Walking down these stairs in a rock climbing guide from this office would be X, meaning if you fall, it's death.

Okay. So far, two of the people I've worked with there for years. Climbing up the staircase day after day, one of them had to have a total back rest restructure. Another lady, Nora, is out having her knee rebuilt. Going up and down those stairs every day. So if management there doesn't get things organized, I'm going to start a GoFundMe page called Nora's Knee. Because they can work remotely, but nobody works remotely efficiently. And uh Yeah, I I'll go by there from time to time to

You know, sign autographs and stuff. How many people work in that office? How many people run that shop? How many people are on the ship? I think there's probably six or seven people. Incredible. And how many clients they got like you? I I I wouldn't deign But I I would imagine a dozen. Yeah, okay. So it's it's the old line

Greenwich Klan. Yeah. I got grandfathered in because of the Greenwich Capital Association. Wow. You know, it's not the place if you're looking for cutting edge heavy duty research. Because you know it's a small operation. But you know, if you're looking for honesty, integrity, they don't run their own.

proprietary book. So there's no nonsense about where the fills go. And the woman who is sort of running the show there, known as the Velvet Hammer, It gets done right or it doesn't get done, which reminded me, and I I'm hoping this comes across as a compliment, because it's certainly heartfelt, but I'll leave it up to anyone to guess.

how many trades I've done in my life and how many contracts. But it's it's a rather large number. I think we can settle on that without too much pushback from Bob Jeroncle or Bob Cobb. Both whether it's commodities, futures, stocks, bonds, interest rate swaps. And I've noticed. Without question. Women of Irish descent. are the best trade clerks by a wide margin. There's nobody close. There was a woman at the Board of Trade, I think her name was Jan Josie, who covered me.

And we spun a lot of futures and she was just fucking dead solid perfect. Then at Greenwich Capital. uh Meredith Morgan, um who I did go to Ireland with and her sister. We did the Ring of Carrie, I think. Is that such a thing? Did the Ring of Carrie? Oh, you think? Excuse me? Is that a big deal? I don't know. Stop it! You think you think I don't know. Well, how would I know? I you know, I'm looking for guys that look like me with Pesach and Talas and

Um yeah, so the Meredith and her sister are just, you know, bonding with, you know, you Irish and the love of the land, right? And I just got dragged along. uh some great golf courses there by the way i you you do you play golf oh fuck no yeah i don't either but i'll tell you Having uh been a reform golfer. Playing golf in Ireland and playing golf in Scotland were were memorable. I I did them with friends. And they remain friends, oddly enough,'cause you know, I

I don't behave well. Yeah. Travel. Yeah, yeah. No, I know. Yeah. But having spent having spent a lot of time on the west coast of Ireland I can't think of anything less I'd want to do than stand out on the fucking rain on a golf course for three hours with the wind howling, no trees. Okay, all the beautiful women have left that island for the record, all right. So it's you and a bunch of country fellas, all right, and sheep.

All right. No gall you know, please. There's that local saying about sheep tell lie. I don't quite understand, but you know, that's the only place if you're ever gonna drink Guinness. That's the only place to get it.'Cause the shit that they ship over here, I don't know what it is, but it ain't Guinness. Yeah. No, I mean Think about it. It's like me telling you money's green, okay? You don't have to tell it.

You know this is not breaking news to me, my friends. The kennish is good in Ireland. I don't we got sidetracked. Tell me more about these Irish clerk women, because now I want like now I kinda wanna I want to know more about them. You know, you gotta be careful in today's day and age, you know, you wanna pay a compliment and it get it gets turned around. It's like not on my shelf, right? And

They got a job to do and they're gonna get it done. And You know, they have no issue about speaking their mind. And they have no issue of asking if they don't understand. And that's the biggest problem communicating to a trade clerk. So to me, a trade clerk, I'm careful about these terms. So to me, a trade clerk. was a incredible valuable. add to what I did because the way we would do things, and this is what was fun about being a hitter, was when you had a lot of something to do.

You had to be there when stuff started going on. So somebody started coming in to sell futures. You just started buying the futures, and then you'd figure out what you had to sell. Got it. And you know. You would get these rough ratios in your head. So for every five thousand five year futures you buy, you'd had to sell five hundred million five year note a c or equivalent.

And so I would keep a running total of how many futures I bought. And then I would just say to E.G. or whoever, I said, we need to sell access. What's rich, you know, because you're buying something that's cheap, you want to capture the cheapness, but if the general rate level moves, And you haven't sold anything, you really haven't done anything except just get along. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so what we would do would be.

I'd just start gobbling all these things up. And then we'd figure out roughly what we needed to sell to get dollar value of an 01 neutral. And then we'd run it through the curve model that was built by the colleagues I mentioned a week or two ago. Mm-hmm. And uh And uh then we just kind of wait for things to settle in. But um I got so accustomed to just spinning shit and in this case, Meredith. was so precise about getting the details worked out, cause a lot of the stuff we did.

Where these things, you may have heard of them. I'm sure you have not trafficked in them. They're called interest rate swaps. And they're bespoke transactions where you create a, let's call it a synthetic bond. Everything is specified individually. The maturity date, the coupon, the rate, the reset, yada yada yada. Okay. And you'd write it down on a sheet of paper and you'd give it to the ticket clerk and they'd input it and it'd show up in your system.

But the nice thing about these things was they were memorandums, so you didn't really have to clear any Securities, you had limits with counterparties because you did have mark-to-market risk, but you know, that was all laid out in these agreements. Um but as an example, which I'll speak definitively of today, which I've not in the past, was When we were working for Bobo, it was during the crisis, and we had a number number of forward starting swaps on, which are just slightly more complicated.

You heard them discuss briefly at Goodwill in the movie Goodwill Hunting, where he said You know, I'll gladly pay you tomorrow for a cheeseburger today. And he takes the cheeseburger and puts it on the dash and he says here I'll put on layaway. That's a forward starting transaction. Got it. Mm-hmm. Okay. So during that tumultuous time.

We uh had some trays warrants going which were going the wrong way and I cried no mas and um We called the person we had the trade on with and they gave us a unwind value and we didn't think it was any good. So Meredith called JP Morden, at that point the rock, right? And I think she dealt with a man there named Secander Elias. I'm not sure, but anyway, um they gave us an unvaled value.

Which we like. So we said, okay, well, we'll do that. But what we want to do is we want to transfer the trade we have on with Goldman to you. It's called Novating a Trade. And it it's just pushing paperwork around. But JP Morgan said, we're not taking Goldman's name. Which in our language is Goldman's out of business. If JP Morgan won't trade with Goldman Sachs, they're out of business. Now, I haven't really talked about that. in the past because it's a bit blasphemous.

But at this point in my life, I feel like I'm compelled to tell the truth. And uh the next thing you know. Pank Paulson Goldman alum. is involved. Warren Buffett comes in and gets a sweetheart deal and Goldman stock rallies fifty bucks, whatever. And it's all shits and giggle. But no, Goldman was out of business. And um uh they just pretended they did like that Costanza thing. What year is this? Oh this is oh eight?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um yeah. So um anyway, that's my uh You know, pointing out that uh I believe the Velvet Hammer is. of Irish descent. You've mentioned that. And um yeah, they're they're they're they're the best. I mean, you know, look. You know, you go to the hospital, there's two signs on the door, Dr. Weinberg or Dr. You know, Shlomo, which doctor you're picking? I mean, I don't know. I'm going with Dr. Weinberg. Yeah, totally. Yeah, 100%.

Yeah, my buddy's got I got a I got an Ir I got a buddy whose Irish grandmother worked they worked as a matrons in the firehouse, dude. They ran the firehouse. Like his grandmother, I don't know, she lived to a she lived to a hundred and died in Probably oh five. So she's born in O five. She worked as a matron in a New York City firehouse.

in the depression thirties and forties. So, you know, talk about, you know, learning to deal with people and dealing with tough guys and and like running the firehouse. Yeah, that was a real thing. And it was Irish women that did it. It was matrons. Um And then like statistically. You know, those those women come from large families that are dominated by cops and firefighters and

That's a that's a rough bunch and to to grow up in that kind of structure, there's not a lot of room for bullshit, talk back. Um, like stuff's gonna get done and done quickly. So yeah, statistically like the statistics back it up. Um like you're you're not you're not going out on a whim, you know? Yeah. Again, I'm sure someone will hang me an effigy for that comment, but it is meant from the bottom of my heart. Because, you know, there's certain professions that I hold in high esteem.

PL Clerk. Ultimate, they're never wrong. I was quoted once. Graciously by Kevin Muir, who said the the margin clerk is never wrong. I'm sure that's true, but the real quote is the PL clerk is never wrong. Um the other is uh I have a man that I met years ago become a good friend, Nate Rex. Best mic bike mechanic in the world. Now, I w what higher compliment could you pay a man?

than to let him be the only one to tune your bike, right? Talk about instrument of life and death, right? You know, and that's why people go into the place, you know, that I don't like. That's combination bike shop and tie massage parlor. Um yeah. Anyway. Um It was uh a little bittersweet weekend for me last weekend because it was Leadville. I know. And um You know, recently I developed a bit of a sinus infection, so my my balance is off a little bit.

So I'm not going to be riding a bike anytime soon. And uh I really wanted to be at Leadville. I I I talk about it all the time. You know, the fact that I got guys like you there, uh, Nate, Tom Croney, Alex Wheel, you know. There's, and it's been noted in the psychiatric literature that when you share intense physical experiences with people, you form bonds.

And you know, I look at some of these relationships I have with people, you being one of them, E. G. obviously, my good friend Henson Warser. Um You know? Uh Henson, one of the all-time great guys. I don't know if you've met him. Maybe at a maybe at a fish concert, but incredible athlete. You know when I got really deep down the rock climbing rabbit hole, I dragged him out to Colorado with me. Another one that couldn't say no. Yeah. And um we went on some legitimate stuff and

I'd I'll tell you something. The guys got stones. I'm telling you, we were up, we were You know? couple thousand feet off the deck. Those guys those guys are those guys don't want to say no to Morris. They're afraid to say no. I'm not. I'm not going a thousand feet on anything. Hey, I talked took to Luca, he was a champ. Another one. Another one that couldn't say no. He was he has no business on a rock wall. He say he doesn't want to say oh no to Uncle Morris. I guarantee it.

I'll bet you if you ask him, he'll tell you the time of his life. I he he totally will. I bet you he will. I I you're a hundred percent right, but but it's it starts with with not being able to say no. So I'm going back the you know, when I crossed the finish line at Leadville for real, Jason was there Cheryl, uh Kate were there. And I was able to hobble over and give Jason a hug. Now Jason's not a hug kind of guy, right? But I I just had to hug'em. It was such a poignant moment.

And he said to me once and later a few times, it was his greatest moment as a coach. Here, think about that. And he's coached winners. He is Oh no no no. He's coached winners of that race. Like he's coached the women Winner. All right. So if you coach the pro-women's winner, Rose Grant, he's he's put Rose Grant on the top step. You'd think probably that's your highlight as a coach, not more it.

Getting over the finish line. But that shows you that, yeah, dude. That I just I'm I'm making the point of like the magnitude of Jason, like like how important that is, you know? So I was reticent to ask him. Because you know that's kind of a feelings thing and uh sure of course. But I I couldn't I couldn't help myself and I I said you don't have to answer. But he wrote me this note where he outlined the process we went through, including a couple of times where I just

He just broke me. Yeah, I can't imagine, dude, on a daily basis giving you instructions and telling you to do stuff and you being tired and cranky and him like But as he wrote in the note. You know, that was the point. He wanted to take me to the breaking point, and that he did. And around that time, I forget who it was, I think it was our good friend the blind squirrel. sent me a Bill Ackman tweet about the Fed should do this and the Fed should do that.

And I just get done reading this note from Jason about mental toughness. And the first thing I can think of is. I bet a million bucks Bill Ackman couldn't finish that race. And you know why? Because he's too weak mentally. And you know why I say that? What's with the fucking Twitter shit? You know, look at me, look at me, look at me. He's got a stake in it. He's got a monetary benefit.

He's gotta it that's gotta be the the boiled down answer. Or it's like I don't know why he can't want the attention. That's the only thing. Have you ever seen Jimmy Key try with JC Penny? Yeah, I know all. I've read all those stories. I watched it. I don't know. Dude, the m I wanna go back to Ledville because the I know I've said it on the sho show before. What dude

You you're not a mountain biker by trade. You're not a mountain biker. Like for Jason to take Rose Grant, who is the arguably the best professional women's American mountain biker of all time, to get her to win the race, that's that's like that It's expected, you know? He got the guy to win the Cape Ep epic. Yeah, I know. I know, dude. He's got someone winning somewhere in the world every week.

Um, yeah, so it's dude, he did it for me. He he sent me he got me with ten emails. Okay. He got me done squared away. You're good to go. I'll see you on race day. You're good to go. All right. It got me done. Um But yeah, dude, that Leadville um it shouldn't be bitter for you anymore, dude. Because like I watched it, I couldn't have been happier because it's not bitter at all. It it it's one of the proudest moments of my life because

You know, there's no like there's no crying in baseball. Like You can have the best support, you can have the best training. But there's nothing like walking your fucking bike up a hill after you just ridden a hundred miles. Dude, you you mentioned you're f crossing the finish line. You you have the worst Leadville finish line crossing photo of all time. Dude, you're like Punched over the bars, you're like

Your chin is on your your brake handle and you it's just it's just funny because likeal straight. I know I know dude that last the dude the the ride back into town. All right, so you've been on the bike for eleven and a half hours. And you can see the finish line, but it dude, it's gotta be nine tenths of a mile away up like hill. And you're just cooked and MB and dude, they put you on they got you on a red carpet. You're crossing a red carpet under the under the finish line.

And they've got, I don't know, 10 HD cameras. They're gonna take a hundred pictures of you in this 10 second. span where you're at like the bottom of you're at the bottom of the well, okay? And yours is just is just priceless. And they're available online. I I'll find it when I get off the show. It takes like two minutes. Jason pointed out in our letter When I finished forty seconds late, I fell off the bike into that mesh fence. Nice, yeah. It carried me.

Into the hospital tent. And there were rumors that I was taken to a hospital by ambulance. Dude, you came to that caravan. You came to that caravan where I sat I sat at that Dodge Caravan for forty five minutes waiting and wondering where you were. 'Cause I was only a little bit ahead I was I was thirty minutes ahead of you. I crossed I crossed the line thirty minutes ahead of you.

And I just sat in silence and waited and waited and waited and worried and then you came. That was a dark time, but I know, I know. All I could think of was all those guys back in Grimmage just fucking snickering. Yeah, let's see you do it. Um anyway, um so uh We had a good week because we followed our principles. Um Uh I'm back to uh cash. You know, I there's a saying the hardest time to invest is now. I think the easiest time to invest in my life ever is is right now.

You get paid 5% in three month bills, sit around and wait for somebody to do something stupid. How hard is that?

Beautiful. I'm gonna go off the reservation a little bit. If you if if I get too far, give me the red light. But several years ago we were out to dinner. With another couple who I got to meet through playing that dastardly game called golf. And uh It's a Jewish fellow. Incredibly funny. Really funny. Hit it off. So, you know, as people do, we went out to dinner with them. In fact, we had dinner one night at uh Amy's place. Um I had the burger, which was spectacular. Of course.

But my friend was involved in this uh AJC, American Jewish. Okay. American Jewish. He made it sound very compelling to Cheryl. And it was something she could sink her teeth into. And She really enjoyed it and has done a nice job. I think they've been appreciative of her help. Certainly they've appreciated her donations. Um But they had a lot of intel and I remember her coming back from these meetings. Trying to be interested.

You know, not that it didn't care about her. Yeah, yeah. She would talk about you can't believe the shit that's going on. They're building these fucking tunnels. You know, Hamas, they got all these missiles, the UN are helping'em. And I'm like, come on, how can this be going on? Right? And she's like, No, we they've got evidence of it. And and I'm like, You're telling me the UN is helping the Arabs set up Shooting rockets at Israel. She's like, yes. I'm like, oh, okay. And fucking lo and behold.

This is definitive. There's no room for discussion. The UN not only harbored these terrorists, they aided them on the day. There's proof, right? UNRWA. And um So now I saw yesterday um They've said it's going to be something like$806 billion to rebuild Gaza. Now, I think you can knock that off a little bit because we don't need to rebuild the tunnels. Right. We can leave those tunnels out. No unions over there either. Yeah. Um but I think what we should do is we should take the United Nations.

As a penalty, we should amin and domain it. And if you want to rebuild Gaza, take the money from the cell of the United Nations. Talk about an impotent, dysfunctional, worthless organization. They were in there helping. People kill human beings. It seems to be somewhere in the charter.

They could move the headquarters. They could move the headquarters off of the East Side. That would really, you know, unfuck that traffic when they have their uh their meetings, you know,'cause that's really all the UN does is fucks up traffic on the FDR and the East Side whenever they have their meetings. Um And you got frozen zones and diplomats running over the sea, but like what has the UN really done? So yeah. You know, if if any you and I king, we it'd be things would be different.

Are you are you are you getting to your global uncertainty concern? Is is is that the re and that's the reason you're staying in T Bills and and staying in the what are you in the three month, the six month? I'm been advised by my personal life coach. Beware of overtrading. You paying him? Do I pay him?

Sounds like he's made you a lot of it sounds like he's m like he should get a fee because again, he's a professional at this and you're kind of just like, you know, getting his service. Yeah. Yeah, billable hours. I I would gladly pay. Okay. You heard this that's on the record. Yeah. Yeah, I'm I I would be happy to pay.'Cause he sounds just as'cause frankly, he sounds just as important as your broker. Because it sounds like you call him before the broker. Well, in my defense.

Willing to pay notwithstanding. Okay. Um I'd like to think it's accretive, meaning we have conversations and hopefully he gets something out of that. But you know, if a build showed up tomorrow. It would be paid with alacrity. And you know, I don't think you put a price on all this free publicity. Right. That's fair. Yeah.

Well you're not you're not kidding though, but no all kidding aside, this is your professional life coach. So like that's that's you the fact that you got a buddy, your best buddy that happens to be a pro at this, okay, it's not a bad deal. So what? He told you to s he told you what? He urged caution and told you to sit and relax? I had mentioned how you know I'd done well on the preferred

I had done a Hava. Stop, stop. Talk to me about the preferreds. Well, talk to me about the preferred, because there's going to be guys that are like like some of my casual day trading, non-professional friends. They're going to be like, what did Morris mean about the preferred? Okay. So Banks need to raise capital. To support their business. And there's various forms of capital. If you recall our lecture, assets equal liabilities plus net worth, you can raise capital through issuance of equity.

Which is the riskiest. You can issue it, you can raise capital through debt, which is risky, but it's the most secured. Or they issue some of these things called preferred shares. And they fall somewhere in that credit stack. A lot of them are convertible into common stock at a certain and have typically A dividend, which is quote non-cumulative, meaning if they skip a dividend. They don't owe you. It's not in arrears. Understood. So these carry risk. Um Fully aware of all the risks.

You will know recently that There were some bonds in Europe that um I forget what happened, but they were in this preferred zone and people didn't know what they were getting. And all of a sudden They got wiped out. Uh our our our partner in crime um Anthony Peters wrote a long piece about it. Yep, I remember. Um so the stuff I focus on is a very narrow band.

They're very liquid. They're very risky. I don't even know that they're investment grade, but It's a nice combination for me because they've received that qualified dividend exclusion, so they're a little more tax efficient. Uh I've known more people to get blown out in those things. Nice. In bad times. Yeah, yeah. And people like me that have done well. So I I don't Uh, I wanna go on notice of saying

Just'cause they work for me don't mean that they're gonna work for you. And it's not'cause I'm trying to keep you out of my pond. I don't care. I I know how how that pond works. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know. And um Uh huh. And it fits my trading approach, which is, you know, I have in my mind areas of value to me. And then areas where I think they're less attractive. So with the ebbs and flows of the marketplace.

Yep. Uh and once again, going back to this comment. the bad trades force the good trades out of the the market. You know, if someone's gotta sell something, They're not selling their penny stock that they think they're going to get rich on. They're selling, you know, you sell what you can sell, right? So they'll sell this thing. And so, you know, if you're willing to stand there and take a slug of something.

Which by the way r reminds me of one comment I wanted to make. Um About trading You know, Kevin Muir has this newsletter that's you know it's pretty technical, but I I think there's a lot of homespun pharma's almond knack wisdom in there. I think it's Macro to Tourist. Macro Tourist is the name of the dude. But he had a couple of comments in there that I rather liked. One was uh You know, trading is only about making money.

Which leads me to my famous t shirt cocktail party bullshit. So, you know, when you're a guy like me that didn't go to Harvard Or Yale or whatever. And you go to one of these fancy parties, they'll say, What do you do? I'm a trader. You know, I made a bunch of money doing this, doing that. Listen, this is how it works. You're a trader when

The only way you eat is when you make money. If you don't make money, you don't eat. You're a traitor. You're a doctor, dentist, lawyer, you somebody tipped you in NVIDIA and you made some money. That's cocktail party bullshit. Okay. Which is why you've seen me over the years. I'm a big believer and, you know, you can't tell till you bet.

You know, again, why I like the rock climbing and the mountaineering and the Ludville? Because you know, everyone's like, well, I can do that, I can do that, I can do that. Well, yeah. We have this very dear friend who is a big shot at Sotheby's. And um People will talk about like modern art and how could modern art be worth so much money? And people would say, well, I could do that. And she would always respond correctly, but you didn't.

Which is true, right? So you know you look at something like the Matterhorn or the Whitney Gilman Ridge or The yellow wall out in Colorado, all these things. Could you do it? Yeah. But you didn't. And you know, like you said, when you're up on the wall and y you look down and there's this term L D fifty, meaning 300 feet is LD50. So if you fall from 300 feet, it's 50-50 whether you're going to live or die.

Okay. All of these climbs are well above that, right? Including the stairs to get up to the brokerage office on Greenwich Avenue. LD50. LD50, yeah. So when I put up these pictures. I look at them, not that these are feats of strength, because climbing is Marty can opine, but I would claim climbing is 90% technique and keeping your shit together. It's not.

How many pull-up? It's not how many pull-ups you can do. No, but think of it like this. How many pull-ups can you do? And how long could you walk for? Oh you could walk forever, right? You could do like twenty pull-ups, maybe. Maybe. So people get in there and they start grabbing and yanking and that you're gonna get burned out in a minute. So it's just a question of getting your feet. Learning how to put your foot in the right spot, smearing, getting your balance.

You know, finger holes. Were you an athlete? Were you an athlete? No. Okay. All right. I don't want to, because I didn't want to say it. I don't know I don't want to say it. But no, dude, for any like for the listener that's never seen Morris, what are you? A five you're five eleven, six foot, a hundred and seventy five pounds? Five ten. Five ten. Five ten, a hundred and fifty pounds.

Buck five ten buck fifty and like wire a wiry Jewish guy. Okay. So you can picture. Okay. All right. This is not like a an Adonis like myself over here, okay? Okay. But like, dude, you're so like you wouldn't call yourself an athlete, but like you've could you've conquered some of the most athletic feats a man can do. Like there's like a meme that says like like it or not, this is peak athletic male fitness. Like take

picture of you at let's call it forty five or forty nine years old and that's peak athlete. Maybe even older. Fifty five. And how are you? Dude, fifty-eight when you did Leadville? Something like that, yeah. So let's say fifty-five, fifty-seven, this is your peak athletic male body, okay? So I spent years sitting at the trading desk. Eating cheeseburgers, getting fat. And you know who did this to me? You know who ruined my life? E. G. Fisher. Ah. Because he's such a

Fucking good athlete. And he's such a positive influence. So he decided we were gonna ride bikes. And then of course my next door neighbor, Turgut Belici, who was national road champion of Turkey. And then I met the ad. The ad, by the way, one of the best bike riders there is. And I say this. Not because of his athleticism, because he ebbs and flows like we all do, but he understands this sport. And that was always what held me back. I had a great coat coach to start, Hoyt Halverson.

He got my aerobic fitness up, but he never taught me the mental. And I got that fellow Abdul Kiba. Okay. Yeah. And I kept saying, look at these numbers. Look at my, you know, look at my FTP. And so we went through the logic of what was happening and he when he expelled it out to me it was so clear and I I would claim I went three years without ever getting dropped from a group right after that. Yeah it's a m

Well you know what it's like? It it's like interval it's like you're you're maxed out you don't think you can go another second and you you cave only to watch the group slow like 20 seconds later right And Abdul's like everyone's suffering just as much as you are. Just another pedal stroke, just another pedal stroke, just another pedal stroke. And finally at the top of that fucking middle patent on the Winston I ride. I just I didn't let go and I made the turn.

And uh stayed with the group. It's such a good feeling. Group slowed and then we got that descent. I caught my breath. You know. And you know, the rest is sort of history for me. I you know, the the times I did the ride in You know, they've all been beaten by now because you get Yeah yeah. But at the time they were legitimate. And like you said, I mean, what was I? You know, I was riding a spin bike in the gym at Greenwich Capitol.

You know, Leslie saw me puking into garbage cans. I was pushing myself so hard. But it worked. And and that's why when I see people throwing in the towel on stuff. It disappoints me and I'm not trying to be a Tony Robbins. I cause you know, you don't wanna do it, that's your business. Yeah, yeah. I I can look myself in the mirror, I feel pretty good about that. But um

You know, I look back on some of these things and it it it it's accretive because you know I've noticed how You've taken these walks with Fiona to see the sunset, right? And so as a father of three daughters, I did a lot of these things with my kids. I took them Rock climbing. I took Lisa ice climbing, which I should be shout for. Um They didn't all always love it, but we did stuff together. And you know. One thing children need

somebody to take an interest in them. And I know, even though I was committed to my career, the fact that I took an interest in my daughters. And I know this will happen for you. Years down the road, they will look at you with such love and fondness for the time you gave them when they were little. It i is there's no price. There's no price on that. And uh I I'm so happy you've done those things. And uh you know, cause in the end, you know.

That's really the bottom line of how you're gonna measure your life. I was thinking about your daughter this week because uh Burning Man did not sell out for the first time ever. So I was gonna ask Maddie, uh, is Maddie going? the middle girl going can you control maddie is starting a new business which we're very excited about okay okay and uh she's launching it at burning man

Just wanna get the parameters here, okay? You know, I have three very, very different daughters. But the middle one's tough. The middle one's tough, right? So There was a point, you know, Maddie so all three of my kids went to that um Anti Semite University Northwestern. Which by the way, the president, I forget his name, was a Jewish guy. Morty Shapiro. Come on. No, Morty Shapiro, Jewish guy. Way to go, champ.

Yeah. Yeah. He fucked it up under his watch. Anyway, Maddie got a degree in marketing. And of course, by the time she got out of school, marketing became nothing more than these. you know, cut and paste auctions, right? So it wasn't what she learned, wasn't what she liked. And so she was sort of trying to find her way. And and I had the idea, I still would have been curious. Maddie is tenacious and she's a competitor. And I had discussions.

You know, like the Godfather, I've had discussions with your father about your future. Yep, yep, yep. I had talked about sending Maddie out to Arizona to stay with Jason. and go to Moab and to train with a young woman named Sylvie Fay. Who is the most talented mountain bike skills instructor I've ever met? Because I'm convinced, even now, if Maddie wanted to become a pro mountain biker. She would do it and she would win because like her mother She has that gene.

w if it's a contest, she doesn't want to beat you. She just wants to fucking humiliate you. To the point no one will play Scrabble with my wife. It's a non starter. It's a non-starter. But dude, the girl from Central, dude, there's the all right. So you brought up the girl that won, I don't know if she the the the female Olympian road rider. Was riding C R C A Central Park like six years ago, dude. She started

She moved to the city and like wanted to exercise and and signed up for CRCA. She wrote for Jordan. How many Jordan riders do we know? She rode for Jordan in CRCA, got picked up, got got put on the program and rode the Olympics in like six years. So My concern with Maddie being a pro mountain biker is not her success. It's getting sucked into the life afterwards. Yeah the tattoos and the body piercing. Yeah.'Cause there's a big future in in pro mountain biking. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. I just got a sign from the boss that we're running over. I know. I know. I saw. Okay. Um I let me just check my notes. I mean I've already given you the conclusion about the United Nations. And um Yes, we've covered that. We've cut we've covered the United Nations and their corruption, yes. Um and uh

Well, we should urge caution. We should urge caution and stay on brand. Um, you know, because uh dude, you wanna do you wanna take uh let me could you please weigh in on on a rate hike decisions? Cause I you know, we can't leave without talking about it. Rate hike? Alright, cut, alright, cut, alright, cut. I I misspoke. Um I misspoke. Um Unless he wants to roll up to the starting line in Leadville, we can have another conversation. Stop it. Tell me Tell me what Jay Powell is gonna do.

Tell me what he's gonna do. I think he's gonna do whatever the fuck he wants. I think he's done a great job. And uh uh I I think things will look Uh in our relationship, you're the real human being. Right. You're living in the world. Oh yeah. How do things seem to you? The economy seem okay? Uh now according to Dr. Slock, yes. According but he's judging it off of airlines, restaurants, yada yada yada. The metrics say the economy is great. I say

It's summertime, it might appear that way, but like housing market doesn't seem like it's ripping. Um and and I don't know. I I I mean like to me it's not it's not all hunky droid. To me, it doesn't warrant a cut, okay? Yeah, I don't I don't like the idea of a cut. I think the flat yield curve. Looks okay to me. I think I'd really like to pin this inflation number and get that off the risk. The yield curve flat looks looks okay.

Yeah. I told you, I think it's the easiest time ever to invest right now. You know? First of all, do no harm. If you can't fix it with duct tape, it ain't broke. And I don't I don't think it really matters, but there's gonna be some surus with this election coming up, that Iran situation, Nishkit. I don't know what the fuck they're thinking. But I think stay the course and, you know.

You know? Yeah. Good. Like life coach Leslie Harris says, sit on your hands. Yeah. Don't just don't just what is it? Don't just sit there, stand. What is it? Don't just stand do something, sit there. Is a fishing concert tonight? Yeah, dude. I could be there, you know, like if you guys all weren't such so so so arrogant and spoiled, okay, we could've the four of us could have gone and been in a nice tent in a muddy field in Delaware together.

Okay, I'm sure there's a portage on. It would have been great. I'm not sleeping in a tent with a bunch of guys snoring and farting all night. Okay? Not this guy. No way, no Dutch ovens for me. All right. I'll see you later. Goodbye. You know, everyone thinks they get away with it. Like no one will notice. Yeah. Can't imagine you at that festival. Okay. Yeah. Okay, bud. I'll see you soon, my friend. I'll see you soon. It's great to see you. All right. Thank you, pal. Bye. Bye.