Interview With John Roque: Masters in Business (Audio)

he is a technician extraordinaire. Uh. He is one of those technical folks that other technicians talk about in hushed and reverent tones. You will find him to be uh straightforward, humble, uh blunt and how he describes what he what he does. If you're looking for somebody who has worked for George Soros and worked for other storage shops to be arrogant and uh suffer from a big head, this is not

the guy uh uh that exhibits any of that. He is uh someone who um not only has worked at places like uh Lehman Brothers and and Sorrows Funds Management, but has constantly improved his craft and constantly raised his own skill level and reputation within the industry UM and is really insightful and really knowledgeable about just about everything

related to technical analysis. So if you were all interested in charts, in in investing, in trading, if you want to know how some of the sausage is made on the technical side, UH, you can't do much better than John Rokee. So, with no further ado, my conversation with John Roke. This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholtz on Boomberg Video. My special guest today is John Roke.

He is a technician extraordinaire and spent the first twenty one years of his career as a south side analyst before being recruited to the buy side by UH George Soros UH and his hedge funds UH. He spent five years at Lehman Brothers, about a decade at the Texas BLI Schroeder, a few years at w JB Capital before he ended up with Soros. He is now let's call it, managing director and chief market strategist at a sorrow seated hedge fund called Key Square Capital Management. John Roke, Welcome

to Bloomberg. Thanks Barry. Pleasure to be here. So you and I know each other for for some time. I was always a fan of getting your research. UM, let's talk a little bit about what you do and how you do it. H you were on the South Side for over twenty years. Most of what I know about your work is that you were U technician, a chart reader. Was that always your career? Did you start out as a technician or or how did you eventually evolved to that.

I finished my NBA fort them University and now called the Gabelly School. Uh, And like anybody else who probably graduated either with an undergraduate degree in the mid eighties or an NBA in the early nineties, you probably wanted to work on Wall Street. I found it difficult going. I you know, walked around my resume back then, and there was very little security in the buildings, so you were able to go in and deliver just resume want it was. It was a great time. I got to

meet the Sanford Bernstein just by doing that. Just happenstance. And there was an ad in the paper. Like guys of our age used to do. We used to look at what's in the classified correct and UH, there was a job for a an analyst position at Sappian Investment Research and place, New York. That's way back when. Uh. It certainly is Ken Sappian Uh and his former partner, Ken Smiling where top analysts on the street in the seventies, and uh he ran a boutique investment shop. I applied

to him. I sent the resume, a cover letter and a copy of my thesis paper, and Ken was kind enough to hire me. So you you come out of school with an m b A, you start working for a boutique research firm. How does that morph into a CMT? How does that morph into technicals? Well, to be honest, I'm not a CMT, but I'll tell you how it morphed into technicals. So Ken saffian Um did a ton of economic work, but he also did a ton of

technical work. In fact, he had a process in the late sixties seventies called the dual market principle, where he saw the market as being delineated between growth stocks and cyclical stocks at different points in an economic cycle. So he did a lot of cutting edge technical work, and um he allowed me to join in to maintain and and create and keep economic UH indicators as well as

technical indicators. And I think it was sort of Um, you know he opened the kimono for lack of a better phrase, and I got to see a lot of things. I became very interested. So so how did that lead to chart? Well, every single day, I know this will sound really old school or or dinosaur like, at the end of the day, I would print out nine D prices from my bloomberg. There was one Bloomberg in the whole shop, and I would graph using pencil and a

ruler and graph paper. Uh, the high low enclosing prices for nineties stocks for every day for four years. You are you are not the only technician who said that. We We've had from Jeff to graft to to Luisia Matta, to Paul Desmond to Ralph Akimpora. It seems that this generation and the previous generation of people all graft by hand in the early days. Well that was the only way to do it when it really came down to it.

The Mansfield chart used to be delivered on a Saturday morning to your house, but they were through Thursday prices. Explain what that is? That's people so younguns aren't going to know. Mansfield was was out of New Jersey. I think it was Jersey City, and it was a subscription pricing and you sent in your check and you would get New York Stock Exchange or nasdac amex charts like Giant book would show it was Actually it was almost like loose leap paper that you could you could update stuff.

You would flip through it and they would deliver it on. You could put it in a binder, but um, I would end up flipping through it, throwing out the ones I didn't want, keeping the ones I did, And it came and sell a fane paper and some guy would drop it off like your newspaper on a Saturday morning on your front stoop. If I recall they were located in Jersey City, so they could get to the New York City people quickly as opposed to where, you know, being on the other side of the country. They had

printed and then drop it off in. It was an excellent service. The charts were easy to read. And uh, nobody had this sort of stuff at your home, right bloom By coming into your house was thin. But you didn't have the Internet, you didn't have the computing patter, you didn't have anything, right, So and then UH Investors Business Daily. You could buy chart books from them. They would also be delivered on a weekly basis. That sort of took Mansfield and and upgraded a little bit. Uh huh.

But those were the only ways to do it, really, that was it. So at what point did you say, gee, I'm a pure technician. I'm not really looking at a whole lot else besides technicals. Well, when at Saffian Investment Research, I thought that doing it from a technical point of view allowed me to see a lot of things pretty dawn quickly, rather than focusing on one thing and being in depth. And I like the overview aspect of it.

And at that point, although my thesis paper was on kind of peripherals and it was using you know, financial statement analysis, I was sort of wholly technical. And I've been wholly technical since ever since. So so let's talk about technicals a little bit. Um. What is it that charts actually measure and why does that work? I think charts measure the dynamic between buyers and sellers, supply and demand.

Now you know you're you're you're a long time market participant, and you might say to me, well, John, for every buyer there has to be a seller, and I'd say, I agree, But technical analysis tells us who's more aggressive, the buyer or the seller. And I think that's a very important concept. So we might say, yeah, for every buyer, there's a seller. Yeah. But if I'm the buyer and I want to pay more for it because I really think it's going up, that is information that is readily available.

There may not be a buyer seller at every price. That's correct. So that's what determined. That's correct. I mean, if you think about it this way, um, you know, you might say to me that I'm buying this stock because it's cheap, and and I'll say that's true, But it doesn't win because it stays cheap, right, It wins because by definition, it gets momentum and gets less cheap. And and just just because something is cheap doesn't mean it's not going to get cheaper. That's correct. I'm Barry Ridults.

You're listening to Master's in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today is John Roke. He is the master technician who previously was working with George Soros. Now he works at a sorrow specked hedge fund called Key Square Capital. Let's talk a little bit about technicals, and I'm assuming the audience is fairly lay person. Explain exactly what technical analysis is for the lay person. I think technical analysis

is about trend It is not about trading. There are some people who are really good at trading, but I'm not. And I think in the advent of machines at hyper speed um, the less we talk about trading, the the likely we're going to be more successful at our trend following discipline. So I think technicals are about trend. Trend is the most is the trend is the least in my opinion, understood investment concept, however, because it's very hard to identify. So let's let's let's go into trends a

little bit. I was always taught a trend is you you can as if you can draw a straight line across three points, you have a trend. Is Is that oversimplifying? No, I don't think it's oversimplifying it at all. And how many people do you know in a business are willing to stick with that trend until it's finished, as long

as it's going in the same right direction. Richard Russell said the most difficult thing in the business is to stick with the bull market the entire way through, and the second most difficult thing in the business is to stay out of a bear market the entire way through. So I'd say trend following is pretty darned difficult. Richard Russell was pretty ahead of the game with that one. So what do you think are some of the bigger

misconceptions about charts and technical analysis. I think the misconceptions are that technical analysis sees all. It may be that it does, but no technical analysts sees all that's intriguing. So explain the difference between everything being there in price

and not being able to recognize that from from the charts. Well, just to give you an example, when I was at Sorrows Fund Management, I surveyed, uh, let's call it twelve technical types every week and I asked them buy, sell, or neutral on a roster item list, and you'd be surprised how many people came back with items that were different from the person who had just responded. So you could have twelve people responding every week and there would be no quorum as to what, let's say, item A

is doing. And so my former partner, Steve Schaubin at Lehmann was fond of saying, it's the singer and not the song. Hey, so uh. The naturally leads the next question, how much of this is science and how much of this is art and and somewhat subjective. I get the sense you're implying it's a little of both. I think it's a lot of both. So I'm I'm fond of this book that was that I read earlier in my career. It's it's not a it's not an investment book. It's

a poker book. It's called Shut Up and Deal. And it's written by a guy named Jesse May. Okay, and I'm gonna paraphrase it, and I'm going to cuff the comment. But in the book he said, when you play poker, everybody wants to master the rules, right, when you raise, when you fold, right, that's important, he said. But but winning it poker is about mastering the luck. And I

think that's appropriate for our business as well. So so I would apply that to your question and say, it's a little bit of science, it's a little bit of uh, it's a little bit of um poetry, it's it's all those things put together. So, so how do we master luck? I always assume luck is to some degree random, although we've all heard the expression luck is with preparation meets opportunity or branch Rickey said, luck is the residue of design, right. I mean, the harder I work, the luckier I get.

All those things are appropriate. I think it is listening to the message in the charts and not putting your biases into what you think it's telling you. How hard is it to keep your biases? I think it's very hard, which is why sometimes when I was on the cell side, I would send out charts that I would reports entitled mystery charts, and I would say, the first person who gets this question right, I'll buy him lunch next time

I'm in there town. And you'd be prize. How many people would be quick to respond, and I would put the chart, I would put the technical characteristics of it, but I would take the title off of it. Huh. And I think when people saw it without the title, they made a more objective decision than when they saw it with the title. And I think that's a good way to think about it. So I have a variation of that, which I call the indicator. That when you would talk about a name with somebody who is on

the bi side, when you're on the cell side. If you would bring up the name and three out of four people go, uh, I can't touch that. That's a piece of junk. Hey, well guess what if everybody thinks that it's probably already in the price and it was a little bit of momentum and you have plenty upside there. That's that's funny that you you did it by just pulling the names off. So when you reveal the names, what was generally the response to people who said, this

chart looks great, I'm excited about this. I think some people who had the objectivity would say, oh, well, okay, I don't care what the name is. The dawn chart looks it must be that the story is pretty good, and other people might have been a little bit dismissive of it. Oh yeah, okay, but I'm not interested. But I think the yeah, and I think the exercise sort of was a good exercise to allow them to say, hey, there's something there and if we remove our biases, we

can actually pick up some important information. So tell me a little bit about your process. When you're on the cell side. What did your daily research consist of and how did that change once you moved to the buy side. So My process includes trying, and I'm going to emphasize the word of trying to monitor or pay attention to all sorts of traded prices, bonds, they're corresponding, yields, commodities, currency sectors, indexes, stocks across all sorts of time zones.

And I built some screening tools, some scoring mechanisms that helped me do that. And like any other technical person or any other chart person, I look at it ton of charts, and I've taken that discipline from the cell side and I've tried to apply it on the by side. So now that you're on the by side, is your process very much different? Other than having to travel for work and and sell a product? Short of that, is the research process still the same? I'd say it's pretty

much the same. That's that's really, um quite interesting. One of the things I loved about when you were on the seal side, you're written product, you would you would, similar to Ed Hyman, who's an economist, take a chart and mark it up by hands. Um. First, where did that idea come from? Well, well, I mean you you you prefaced it. I mean Ed Hyman taught us all that annotating charts simply and clearly really goes a long way to making your research more palatable to the people

who are paying for it. So he's the he's the godfather of it. To tell him truth. And you answered the second question, which is what's the purpose of right, I think it's just so people become familiar with you and your research. And I think when people become familiar with you, there's a trust aspect that grows. And uh, you know when for somebody who was formally selling research. I think that's a really important concept to building a business.

You have to develop a trust aspect with the people who are going to pay you commission dollars for your research. I'm Barry Rihults. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today is John Roke. And you have been working UM for the past couple of years for Soros Fund Management, which is George Soros's hedge funds UM. What is it like working at such a storied firm like that. I'm going to try to create

a metaphor. I think it was to me it was sort of like being able to play basketball for University of North Carolina Tar Hills. When Dean Smith was a coach or playing basketball for the u c l A Bruins when John Wooden was a coach. It was sort of PhD macro um across the board. Just a true honor for me to have been there. So I we all recall the story I think was told by a Soros's son that when his back started aching started bothering him, he basically had to sell something to make the pain

go away. Any truth to that, Well, I read the same story, but I would probably say that was akin to a very strong intuition. And um, I think after being in the business for a long period of time, we all developed intuitions that we uh listened to, you know, with with with a very uh, you know, attentive ear. So he's known as a big macro trader, famously bet against the pound and a number of other really large

macro bets. How does a technician fit into a shop like that that, at least publicly seems to be so macro event driven. I actually think it's a natural that macro and technical analysis are complimentary, uh. In my opinion.

One of my favorite books in the business is a book entitled More Money Than God, which is written by Sebastian Mallaby, and in it you read about all of the storied hedge funds and about guys in our business whose faces are on the mount rushmore of investing, and you realize just how important technical analysis is, was, or is to their process. I think it's just a natural and uh, it wasn't a shock to me, not a

shock at all. It wasn't a pretty consistent Um. It's funny Malaby just put out the book on Greenspan, which I haven't gotten to, but I have more money than God at home, and it was it's one of those things that's on my short list that I'm that I'm going to get to. UM. So you move from the cell side to the by side. When you were on the cell side, you were very much a public figure, used to do conferences, in television everything. You go to the buy side and its radio silence. What was that

transition like? Was it was it relaxing to kind of get out of the public eye or did you miss a little of the back and forth give and take. UM. Well, I I gotta tell you, for twenty years of of doing shows like this with people like you, there are no shows. It's very nice or or traveling to market my product was a was a great thrill being on Wall Street Week with Lewis Ruth Keiser was Uh, you know, one of a bucket list kind of thing to do.

But I'm equally happy being on the buy side, and I put all my energy and emphasis into putting out product that I think is going to help Key Square Capital Management. So when you say put out products, I'm assuming there's an investment committee you're participating in that, or there's some dialogue back and forth. How is advising on deploying capital different then selling a commission transaction or or

is it not different? I think an idea is an idea irrespective of which side of the business you're on. And I think the person that you're speaking to uh, and I happen to be speaking to a person who is uh intellectually open. His name is Scott Bessant and always willing to listen to an idea. And and because he's like that, it gives me confidence to continue to

present those ideas. It's sort of like, uh, when you're on the cell side and you have a client that you get along with really well, you'll call that person all the time and you'll show that person all of your ideas because they're they're willing recipients of those ideas. And some of your clients when you're on when on being on the cell side, were probably less um receptive.

Receptive is a good word, and so I'm just I've been lucky that the the gentleman I'm working with now and have worked with over five years is receptive to ideas and intellectually open and uh and willing to listen to my my, my imagination. So, Scott Besson, if the I recall the name correctly formally c I O of Soros Fund Management, is that right? And I also recall you saying he's the person who recruited you to work

it with Sorows. That's exactly right. So I have to assume that he is a heavy hitter running Soros is money. That's a fairly substantial. And is it the same sort of investment process at Key Square that it was at Sorrows or is it a little different? You know, soroces now mostly running his own money, if I'm correct, mostly um the family office family office, as opposed to Key Square, whereas it's a lot of outside I think it is a macro focus fund, and from that point of view,

UH it has a similar focus. My special guest today is John Roke. He is a technician UH currently working for key Square Capital, which is a hedge fund seated by George Soros. He worked on the sealth side and a number of storied shops, including Lehman Brothers UH for many years before going to work at Soros Fund Management. Let's let's talk a little bit about your approach. You do some things that I find to be really interesting that I don't see a lot of other people doing.

For example, I I've noticed how you calculate market up of sector and then put it against the SMP. Tell us what that actually accomplishes and how you began doing that sort of analysis. Okay, so all credit goes to a former client of mine by the name of Bob Rosette, who was at Morgan Stanley as a management at the time Organ Stanley Capital Management and UH. He was a very technically focused guy, although a fundamental guy, but very

technically focused. And one day he said to me, you know, I have some data that might be of interest to you, and he shared the data with me, which was sort of like giving me the keys to the Kingdom. How long ago this? Gosh, this was in the nineties. Really, yeah, this was in the mid nineties. So he says, here's the data showing take take the cap of each sector versus the total capitalization, and do it on a relative

market cap basis. That's right, as I present to the SMP, and I thought that was I mean, he really opened my eyes to a section of the market that I was formerly not aware of or how to use it in an in an analytical sense, and so I used it to great success s i'll say polite, to some success. Um. In two particular instances after that. One of them was as Tech was making its apotheosis in late and early two thousand and Tech had grown to be about a third of the weight of the SMP five hundred. Really,

that's a market relative market cap basis. And when it first cracked, I knew that Icarus had flown too close to the sun, and I knew that we were going to have a very painful bear market and it was going to be more than a flesh wound, to paraphrase the black knife from Monty python Um. And so I thought Tech was going to get destroyed and what's down

amongst friends? And then in uh in two thousand and six, the relative market cap of financials grew to be more than of the spire cracked at twenty two and a third at twenty two and a percent, and I thought that that was going to be really bad because the financials not only did they have a big market cap, but even a technical guy would probably tell you how important they are to the economy to say the least.

And uh so I used that analysis to tom some success at both of those important So when you're looking at the cap relative to to the broader index, what is that actually informing you other than those instances where you're at wild extremes or is that what you're looking for. I'm looking for wild extremes, but I'm also looking for trends within those relative market caps. Right, Relative market cap

is sort of a way of saying relative price. And if relative market cap continues to steadily move higher, then I'm going to figure that the trend for that sector is intact, firm, strong, and advancing, and I should be looking for stocks in that sector that I should be biased towards the upside with. All Right, so let's say you find a particular sector you like, how do you keep drilling down from there? Do you look at subsectors?

Do you go right to companies? When you pick a random sector that the trend is long, strong, firm, where do you go from there? I want to find the biggest cap comp and he's in that particular sector. Really, why is that? Because for a fund of some size, it doesn't make much sense to focus on stocks of smaller market capitalizations because it's very difficult to move the needle. So I want to focus on the largest market cap stocks in a sector that is trending, because I think

I can get the better longer dated performance from those stocks. Right, you can't get enough of a small cap for a substantial fund to make any sort of difference, That's right. And and the big stocks are always very liquid, and I'm sure you could buy as much of that as you want. And if you need it to take yourself out of a position, you could do it with with with little dislocation. That's very interesting. So of late you've been somewhat barished on the financials um How important our

financials to the SMP into the economy. Can we really have a bull market without the financials participating well. So I'm always going through my process and and always going through the Now eleven SMP econom ex sectors, financials are one of the eleven. There were formerly ten SMP broke

out reads from the financials. Now they're eleven. And I noticed that during a twenty two month period from December through October, the financials had gone through four important setbacks fourteen, twenty two, and ten and a half, and they had underperformed the SMP during that twenty two month period. So to have them as an underweight or to be cautious

on them probably wasn't such a bad idea. In addition, at the same time, European banks and Japanese banks were very poor, right, and the only bank group that was doing pretty well of G seven markets was Canada. So to have avoided financials for that period it wasn't such a bad idea. It was only in the last week

where you really had a tremendous performance post election. That's correct, But you know, when you have a geopolitical surprise like that, that isn't necessarily going to be reflected in in analysis beforehand, everybody's playing because it was just so darn sudden right and then and so now how do you look at financials today? Has has the recent move change your mind or does it look like a temporary spasm. So quite recently the uh SMP Diversified Bank Index was above it's

above it's two D day moving average. I'd say that's like an athlete who sprinted a long way very quickly in a short period of time. So it's a little ahead of itself. This may need to rest, it couldn't need to pause, but I would say that the pattern that's in there is is a very good technical set up. I'd also say, with respect of the financials during the period when they were underperforming, UH, I would ask myself and my counterparties on the cell side, are we in

a bull market? And more often than not you'd hear people say yes. But during that entire time, the SMP was up maybe two or three percent pretty much range. Uh, if you were in the fang stocks, it was a bull market. But I think if you were in the index, you would probably say it wasn't a bull market, but it wasn't a bear market either, So just arranged bound market. Look, we can't from the lows and O nine to let's call it thirteen um market was up two hundred plus percent.

That's a lot of motion in a real short period of time. You have to eventually catch your breath and market has to digest those games, I would think so um. So, so let me ask you a broader question, which you just made me think of. A lot of people say this market is long in the tooth because you have a nice run from O nine to sixteen. That's seven years.

But I always learned secular bull markets don't begin until you make new highs above the previous highs, and we didn't see that happen until So first, do you look at the current situation as if we're in a secular bull market? And if we are, where would you date that too? So I think we've been. There was a six sixty six low in two thousand and nine, and uh up from oh nine to now. The cumulative return would say time and price, you have been in a

bowl market. But you've got most of that through Let's call it the midpoint of two thousand fourteen or the autumn of two thousand fourteen, And from the autumn of two thousand fourteen to now, you've really marked time by going sideways, although it's been difficult and adjective filled. But I tend not to think of things secularly or cyclically. I tend to think of things, Can I make money on the long side? Or can I make money on

the short side. That's the way I tend to approach things, because I don't want to be locked into a viewpoint that's really interesting. Over the past two years, has it been easier to make money on the long side or the short side or none of the above? I think it's been. I think it's been equally difficult. I think it's been a very difficult period. The market, in my mind,

has been Uh. The market is driven h E t F drive stocks, stocks don't drive t F. And I think the market on any given day can do just about anything because your algal is an aggressive buyer, and then my algal follows your algo, and my algal is an aggressive buyer. Um. But it has been exceedingly difficult, and UM, I think we're not for the FED pinning the FED funds rate where it is. Uh, perhaps the

environment might be a little bit different. Can can you find another period in time and history that's comparable to the zero or is this drue unique. I think it's truly unique because of the central bank backdrop. That's my that's my opinion that that changes, that changes everything. Um, we mentioned financials earlier. One of the things I know about your prior work. You use JP Morgan as a proxy for financials. I suspect that's because it goes back

in history so long. But why one stock as opposed to a group of stocks. Uh So, My former partner at Lehman Brother, Steve Showben, taught me about the importance of bell Weathers So of time I've tried to find and define sector or market bell weathers Now for a long time. You'll recall this. Uh, people use General motors. As General Motors went, so, so went the market. People used IBM for a long time. We Steve Schouben and

I used General Electric. And then as you went into the mid two thousand, City Group was the most important stock in the entire world, not just the most pill stock in the SMP five hundred. Well, that didn't work out too well. Well, it did work out very well because when it peaked then you knew that was correct. So it didn't work out well for City Group shareholders. But if you were paying attention to what City was doing.

Told you a lot about city, It told you a lot about the banks, and it told you a lot about the market. So it was an excellent bell weather. When did city pink and the peak? And well, it was peaking in two thousands six seven, right around the time when the financials as a percent of the SMP five hundred got to about on a realtive market cap basis. So when City rolled over, that was short of all she won't And so I use I think JP Morgan is a good bell weather, not only for financials but

for the market as a whole. We've been speaking with John Roque. He is the technical strategist at key Square Capital Management, backed by George soros Uh. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure and check out all our podcast extras where we keep the tape rolling and continue chatting about all things technical. Be sure and check out my daily column at Bloomberg View dot com or follow me on Twitter at rid Halts. We love your feedback and comments. Be sure to write to us at m IB podcast

at Bloomberg dot net. I'm Barry rit Halts. You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio, brought to you by Bank of America. Merrill Lynch Seeing what others have seen, but uncovering what others may not. Global Research that helps You Harness disruption voted top global research firm five years running. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Spinner and Smith Incorporated. Welcome to the podcast, John, Thank you so much for doing this. I'm right, you know. I been a fan

of you as for forever. I've been reading your stuff for a long time, which is not easy to get. Your stuff was always hard to track down. Well, thanks, I was always horse trading with other people. Hey, you get Rokee, get me that. What do you got, I'll give you this, You give me that that. You know what happens on the so that that went on all the time, and it was we were never a client. We were never big enough to play in the pond

where you played. Um, there were a couple of questions I didn't get to that I really want to get to before we start our usual podcast stuff. Um, why don't we jump right into the sports analogy since we were just talking about you. You we were off fair. We were talking about um, uh, we're talking about listening to baseball and joining the metaphor between baseball on the radio versus financial television. You use a lot of sports

analogies in your research. Now, is that because you're sports junkie? Or is that because there's a metaphorical parallel between sports and investing? Why why all the baseball? In fact, just earlier we were talking about um, you know, sorrows fund like like the Ruins. So I am a sports junkie, but I think that there are metaphorical examples that transfer seamlessly. And I'll give you one. So baseball people will tell you that Ted Williams is the greatest hitter of all time,

and uh. He wrote a book entitled The Science of Hitting, and one of the chapters in the book is called hit according to Your Style, And he relates a story that was told to him or or an anecdote that was told to him by Rogers Hornsby Rogers Roger with an s right Rogers Hornsby, who was the greatest right handed hitter of all time. He's the last right handed hitter to hit four hundred, and he actually averaged four hundred over five seasons. Really the only guy, a guy

major do that. He said that Williams that the single most important thing for a hitter was to get a good ball to hit, in other words, to swing it strikes. And I think the same thing can be applied to stocks, for a example, you have to hit according to your style and not swing its stocks that are out of your strike zone. And I think that increases your chance of winning. Makes makes perfect sense. You've seen the Buffett um book that he recommended. So Warren Buffett recommended the

Ted Williams book. And there's a graphic in the Ted Williams famous of the strike zone, and he somehow figured out so I think it was like seven balls across the top of the strikes because the plate is seventeen inches right, so it's seven withs and sixteen or he was about six three right. So he figured out the exact strike zone and then somehow calculated his hitting percentage of each and every which he was a quant before any money years before money ball was ever conceived. He

applied probabilities to hitting. Really, people don't understand how brilliant he was as a mathematical hitter, not just as a big He was cerebral and that's fascinating to me. Yeah, I I read the book when I was a player. I bought the book and tried to help my sons with it when they were players, And um, I tried to use some of his methods when I was coaching. UM and I would just tell my kids, if it's good, you've got to be swinging, and if you're in certain counts,

you need to be a hitter. You can't be taken pitches. And I know it's inappropriate or not, it's not the right way to say it, but uh to little league players. But nobody ever went to the Hall of Fame being a good walker. You got there by being a good hitter. So you play where did you play ball? I played in high school, I played a little while in colle leg and I played some semi pro baseballs. Oh really, I was a picturer and I now have the torn

rotator cuff. Um, no, not anymore. But um, I was accurate. I was fast. I had no breaking pitch and that's why nothing after high school. Wait, you're supposed to make the bull dry. I don't throw that way. I just throw it as hard as I can. So, um, that's really and I was deadly accurate. That was the yeah, well corner, A little little chin music. Whatever you had to do. Um, So you played a semipro, That's that's great. How How what's amazing at that level? And we'll talk

about a little math. Is you get one more hit a week and statistically you're just so far ahead of everybody else. That's correct. The level of competition is really amazing. That's correct. If you strike out one less time a week, it's a big deal, huge, just a huge. Um. Have you read much of Michael Mobison's work on luck and skill? Um? So, I have been. I have been able to sit in on some of his presentations. So the answer to that question is yes. I think he does some really good

work about that. The book um The Success Equations, Separating Luck from Skill and Sports Investing in Business. The irony is that the skill level is so high in professional sports that it turns out that luck matters a whole lot more than it does amongst amateurs. Yeah, without a doubt. And and and they're playing a game in their head

all the time, right, which is why. And I've said to my son, I said to my son's when during the playoffs in the World Series, if you really watched baseball closely, you'll watch that major League Baseball players swing at pitches, not necessarily at strikes. And by that I mean you'll you'll be watching a game and you'll see a guy take a pitch right down the middle, and you might say to yourself, how could he not swing at that? And the reason he wasn't swinging at is

because he wasn't guessing that on that pitch. You know, he got a fastball. He may have been looking for a curveball. He got a curveball. He may have been looking for a fastball. So they're they're guessing right, and they're in a mental game, a calculation game, or a game of probability versus the picture. And that's the reason that you know at that level that sometimes you would say, you're a younger guy, you'd say you have to be

swinging in that situation. And sometimes they're not swinging because they're not guessing at that pitch. You know, Um the coach of the Giants, Um who departed a couple of years of right, Tom Coughlin. I'm not a sports book fan, but he wrote a book called Earned the Right to Win, and he talks about in the book the research they were doing. All right, what is this opposition team. What do they do on on you know, second and long?

What do they do on third and short? What are they And then every player would have to learn that, and some of the players really um pushed back on it. And I'm trying to remember which was its straight hand it was it was one of their um defensive backs used to complain about it all the time. And then years la he's playing for another team and it's a bowl game situation and it's third and short and he says, all right, what do these guys do on third and short?

And he realizes I don't have this information? Oh my god. Cochlin was right. You need to have that prep as big as a pain in the neck. It was as it was. It was a decided advantage. And what you're describing with the batters very similar there. If they know the picture, if they've studied him, they know their tendency, they're making a reasonable guess. All right, with three and third and one. He tends to throw a breaking bowl

outside I'm looking for I like to hit those. It's really fascinating the whole And I think the same thing applies to stocks, right, You want to you want to find a stock that fits your style. What's the tendency of a stock to do something after it looks like it looks now? And so over time you you recognize that a pattern looks like it does now and that

usually is followed by some reaction. And that's because you tend to understand and you tend to have seen so many of them over time, you you tend to I don't want to say foretell, but expect a certain result. But that's why you look at hundreds of charts tonight. You do that for twenty years, and eventually you really get a feel for Right, I've seen this pattern before, and I know what tends to happen here exactly. What what other sports metaphors apply to markets and invest there.

I really think baseball is is about as good as there is. Um we could you know, we could go into uh into basketball too, and I think there are a lot of a lot of basketball metaphors to where and you could see now the teams really want to shoot three pointers. They know that you're getting more per basket made than you would be when you're shooting a two pointer. Right, they want despite the fact that some of them might be low percentage shots. But the reward

is so much greater. And but from the corner, it's a really high percentage shots, not that much because it's it's it's a it's a higher percentage shot because it's closer, but conceivably you're seeing less of the basket. It might be thought to be harder when my fall, there was a player, you know, when they still had laces on basketballs that I would have told you that's a poor

percentage shot because you're not seeing the entire basketball. You're not getting the same deaths exactly just see the rim floating exactly right. But if you have a touch and if you know where that is, that's your closest three point shot you're gonna make. And you see guys like Curry,

they live in those courts without a doubt. And I think as did Michael Jordan when he was shooting and and and I think, uh, you know, sort of an appropriate football metaphor is that, uh Brady and the Patriots is are so successful not because he throws over the top to Gronkowski thirty yards down the field every time, but because he hits Edelman or amend Ola or when they had west Walker, he would hit them in the flat for five or six yards, moved down the field,

moved down the field, and then go over the top to Gronkowski, right. But but to set it up so that you're you know, you're taking short gains, short gains that then you have a lead, you know, the the yard is in your favor, and then you could go over the top to try to hit you know, a

mixed matter of home run. Right. Well, you know that that's the the interesting thing about football is you're always trying to not just use each play to move the ball downfield, but each play subsequently sets up a lot of play. Are you are Are you throwing long and everybody's sitting back, then they're giving you the shorter over the chess not check it's checkers, not apart me. It's chess, not checkers. As Denzel Washington said to Ethan Hawk in

training day, it's multiple steps down the road checkers. You know, there are some players that have the mental game, have the pizzical game, and then have all the tools out there to hit. When you look at New England, I mean that's really just an embarrassment of riches for a quarterback who's smart, who has good field vision and could really right. So it's it's it's not a coincidence that those guys have, um have been winning as much as they have been over the past couple of years. Um,

So give me a basketball metaphor. So it's the three pointer and and what else? What else is a good basketball metaphor for investing? You know, I keep coming back. I think a good one is. I think a good one is is that? Uh So, I watch a lot of basketball. I watch a lot of high school basketball. My former c y OH coach is a is a very school basketball. Watch a lot of high school basketball because my former c y O coach is a friend

of mine is perhaps too. You know, he's a He's a Westchester County Hall of Fame basketball coach, and he wins about eight percent of his games. And I watched the games a lot, and I sometimes I see how they're playing or how they're winning, and I wonder, you know, whereas sort of hit according to your style style in baseball or swing at strikes would be a kin in

basketball to making your free throws right. Often in a high school game, the team that loses is the team that shot more poorly from the free throw line than their opponents. Real, that's interesting. So we can practice, however many offensive se it's our plays that are in my playbook. Um, but if our team doesn't hit our free throws, regardless of how many offensive plays we have, we're probably not

going to play that. Well, what do you think about the I don't remember it was the high school the college coach who every fourth down he doesn't care, he goes, he goes. I love the statistics. Yeah, the statistics were great. I remember that. Was that the wall a Wall Street Journal article or a Times article. I can't remember where it was where it was printed, but I did read it, and he said, you know, my odds of success, I

got a third more plays than everybody else. Stop and thinking a third more offensive plays if I'm going for an on fourth it's right. I remember that. So the math behind that, the statistics are really quite fascinating. All right,

So let's bring this back to UH to technico analysis. UM. I took the course, the the course UM with the Great Ralph at Kumpora, and one of the things I remember from that course was Ralph saying, fundamentals tell you what to buy, Technicals tell you when to buy true false, What do you think of that. I think it's a pretty good tenant. Um. But I'm also very fond of um. A tenant that is that was said by I believe

Paul Tutor Jones. Uh. He said something to the effect of price moves first, fundamentals follow, meaning that price moves, and then a narrative develops around the price move. So I'm not dismissing what Ralph said. I think it's right, but I think Paul Tutor Jones is is a little bit has a little bit more um. It's a wry observation, uh,

and probably a little bit more cynical. Um. It's sort of you know, stocks moved sharply, especially financials in the last week on the Trump election, and now people are trying to ascribe what will happen going forward. I'll leave those frank, but but it's always an after that. I'll leave those sentence to the fundamental guys. But price moved, and then here's the reason price moved? Right? Well, what good are you doing telling me? Right well? Why weren't

you giving me this analysis before? I think Palter to Jones is uh, you know, line is is pretty appropriate. I don't think it's cynical. I think it's human nature. We were just discussing this the other day that before this, so we can talk about the Clinton Trump election. Before Trump won, the story was she has more money, she is a better get out the vote ground game, they have better analytics. The Trump team is kind of just flinging darts and hail Mary's and what have you. And

then afterwards the narrative completely changed. Hey, their their narrative, their analytics. Their analytics turned out to be much better. Um, they understood what was going on on the ground in Wisconsin. And all these after the fact rationalizations which to be blunts. This election could have gone either way. They pretty easy. If if the Access Hollywood tape doesn't come out, he steam rolls her. If the Comy letter doesn't take place

in October, she probably beats it. Really, this could have easily broken either way, and yet everybody wants to make these broad pronouncements after the fact. It's that same exact process. Oh, now that we know what happens, let's craft a narrative. Let's craft a narrative around that. I find that to be um, absolutely fascinating. Um. So, a couple of other

questions I didn't get to during the regular broadcast portion. Uh. We we just touched on on this very lightly when when I asked, you know, what attracted you to the technical side. Was it the rigor of the discipline, was it the did it make sense logically? Um? Was it some evidence or data that supported it? What made you say, Oh, this is really seems to be the way to go, and what I learned as an NBA student may not be the best way to buy and sell stocks. I'm

going to try to answer it like this. Let's say that I'm a real estate broker and I call you up and I said, hey, Barry, I got a place i'd like you to see. What's the first thing you say to me? You likely say to me, what does it look like? Where is it? That's probably akin to saying, what is the Can I look at the chart? If? Um?

Let's say I had a younger brother and you had a younger sister, and we would like them to sort of, you know, meet, perhaps they can go out at a date, and we introduced the idea to each of them separately. What's the first thing that they would say to us? What does that person look like? I think it's appropriate to think of it the same way with respect to charts. I mean, you have to look at something to be able to have an idea as to what you're talking about.

I mean, Billy Bean popularized moneyball, but guys in the business will tell you that you still have to watch baseball players play. That's the reason teams pay scouts to go watch high school and college players. They have to

see if they can play. Uh, It's sort of like getting a high school kid or a kid who played in a league that wasn't a strong league and he hits six hundred, Well, is that a legit six hundred versus a kid who may have played in a league that was really tough who hit four and a quarter. I don't know. Maybe you need to see them play to be able to determine who was really the better player.

So I think you have to look at what you're thinking about with respect to stocks, index's yields, currencies, commodities across the board. I've asked a number of people if you were only able to look at one thing, would you take a research report? Would you take the chart? And invariably everybody says, even non technicians, I have to see the chart well, I'm glad you said that, because I think charts are the language of Wall Street. No

matter who comes in to make a presentation. Uh, it could be uh, an overview analyst from Hong Kong, it could be an overview analyst from Australia, wherever. It could be somebody here in town. One of the I I ranked overview people when they come in their presentation packages are chalk full of charts, and so it may not be that they're technically oriented, but they are chart oriented. And I'm I really believe charts of the language of

Wall Street. So, given how much computing power is at everybody's desk or even in your pocket on your phone, how does that change the world of technical analysis when everybody can access a chart anytime, anywhere, What what does that do to the field? I think it's actually made it stronger, right, I think it has made it more rigorous because people can check really quickly by looking at

what you're looking at. Again, I'll go back to Steve Schobin's line, it's the singer, not the song, right, It's the interpretation that means more. But I think there's a certain there's a greater degree of rigor with respect to technicals that wasn't there in the past, when it was only I don't want to say control, but but but let's say dominated by a few, because it was so hard to do these disciplines, right, everything was pretty much

done by hand. But now it's so widely dispersed that I think everybody has a flavor for it, and I think that's a very good thing for technical analysis. That that's interesting. So you you reference the the impact of the fed earlier um and the impact of al goes. What what is high frequency trading done to the way charts look and feel? Um? I actually think high when when Michael Lewis wrote the book with about bread Fukayama, Um, yeah, I thought that that was the smoke screen. Not that

I'm not dismissing the book. I'm not dismissing high frequency trading. But I think high frequency trading was getting the blame for something that it shouldn't be getting the blame from it. I think the real risk to our business is in the e t f uh side of the business. Really explain, So I have a pet theory about bonds, but explain why you think e t fs are are so problematic? Uh? I don't. Well, they're not problematic when we go up, then they may be problematic when we go down. I

think because people don't understand them. For example, if you call your broker and say I'm gonna buy an order of spiders, the s P Y you buy spiders, but you've created an unnatural bid for every stock in the SMP five d absolutely, and I think most people who

use those E t F don't understand that. And I also think that if you have a portfolio of individual stocks and you add in an e t F let's say the spider, your risk profile has changed because some of the stocks you already own are in the spider. So your risk parameter is not what you thought it was. You've actually created sort of a derivative product and a leverage product by using a simple et S. So so years ago we had the SMP, we had the down industrials,

but you couldn't very easily trade them. You could go out and buy each of the components in them, but you couldn't just push a button and say I want us and it was done. So when you say E t f s have have impacted this, it's not the index itself, it's that there's a trading vehicle that's that's really easily accessible. And I don't think a lot of people understand how E t F s are made and unmade.

I'm not certain I understand. Well, what little I know about it is normally something like, uh, maybe the SMP the spiders aren't a good example. But you take another E T F UM or g l D for that matter, UM and it has some components, and most of the time when you're buying and selling it, you're just buying and selling that component. There are there are ARBs who will basically identify when it gets out of whack with the underlying holdings and buy this and sell that in

order to bring it into into um appropriate balance. But sometimes the underwriter is making more units when the demand is overwhelming. We saw that with g l D on the way up. It wasn't a finite matter of g l D shares. They were actually making more as the demand had blown up from let's call it oh five to and then as that unwinds on the way down, they start taking those units apart and selling the actual

gold futures or whatever. Yeah, it's not just this is a closed and fund that's trading based on supplians men. There are components that go into it. Yeah, no doubt, which is why I think it's very hard to understand those things. So it's okay on the upside, it's a problem. On the downside, I think it's that then the the is that the balance of risk. I don't think we I don't think anybody is understands and I'm at the forefront with not understanding what it could mean. On the downside.

We haven't seen it, but I do recall, Uh, so it wasn't August fifteen. It would probably have been August where we were down really sharply over a few days. Uh, and there was some dislocation with respect to e t F s and e t F that were sort of supposed to be um more stable were marked down tremendously. Maybe that was you know, sort of uh a preview of what could happen. But again I'm not I don't think I can take a guess as to what it

could look like. It might look it might be fine, it might be well contained, it might not be I don't know. I mean, there's still plenty of ETFs, not there was as nearly as much money in them, but oh, eight oh nine, they were, there were the spiders, the cues,

the diamonds. Yeah, but but I I think the these trillions more to the active versus passive now is has really you know, the ratio has shifted and and the rate of change for assets going into passive versus assets going into active has really benefits the the the the passive side of the business, of which the e t f s are. Bill mcnap of Vanguard says, we look at this wrong, that it's not active versus passive. It's expensive versus It's fine. That's fine too, Yes, but that's

we could characterize it like that too. Yeah, that he's he believes that's what's been driving. Well, sometimes you know, expensive versus cheap, and then cheap becomes expensive. Right that that certainly is a is a possibility assuming there's no risk management in a in a downside and downside move and et f s get she'll act. So there were one or two other questions I wanted to to go over, um and you you implied this, but I want to explore a little more, Um, the advancement of technology. What

has this done for technicals? What does this mean? Uh to trading in the market. I think the effect on technical analysis is incalculable. Really, it's I mean, the Bloomberg terminals, what you can do on the Bloomberg terms insane, It's totally insane. We we are office laughs. It's like I feel like we barely scratched. I mean, just to give an idea. So the other day I I did a relic to ratio of the of a group of Macau gaming stocks to Patty Power, which is the Island base

London traded online betting. I mean ten years ago. I couldn't have done that twenty years ago. It was inconceivable. And if you did it, you had to you do a calculator if you had one, or a spreadsheet if you had a lotus one to three. Uh, you know too. And then I can do it with with with a handful of keystrokes on Bloomberg. That's it's crazy. Yeah, that's amazing, amazing. So what does this do to the process of learning how to chart and what does it due to the

market having all this technical horsepower. Well, it's another reason that I think it's more appropriate for me to try to stick with longer term trends rather than trying to be a trader because I can't figure that I'm going to be any better than any machine. And John Henry, Yeah, I can't figure that I'm going to be any better than somebody who is a trader. I'm not a trader.

I'm an analyst, and so I think my strength is trying to stick with trend rather than trying to, uh, you know, be able to trade better than somebody who's doing it every single minute they're in their chair. So you reference trends earlier. Let's let's talk about trend as opposed to patterns and mean reversion. What makes trend so significant because I think when you have the trend right, you're bailed out of your mistakes. When you have the trend right, Well, what are the mistakes when you have

the trend right? Sometimes you overthink your positions. I'll use you as my example. Let's say you bought something today. Invariably you come in on Monday morning, you're questioning yourself whether or not you should have bought that. Tuesday, you're doing the same thing, and you do that every single day that you own that item until you get rid

of it. But sometimes our best decisions are made stepping away from the screen or the terminal, whatever you want to say, and trying to conceive of that item within its trend. And you might say, Okay, I get it. That stock might have some difficulties because I might have not had the best entry point, but overall, it is in an uptrend, and because it's in an up trend, I'm going to give that stock the benefit of the

doubt on any pullback. Now, you might have to set up a risk parameter for yourself that says, Okay, I know it's an uptrend, but if it breaks some percentage retracement level, I don't care what that trend says, I have to reduce my position because it impacts the rest of my portfolio. But I think when an item is in an up trend and you are along that item, it deserves the benefit of the doubt, meaning that you know it can get knocked around a little bit, but

the trend is not broken. And before I get to my favorite questions, I would be remiss if I did not ask you. You were Lehman Brothers in the middle of the nineties, that had to be a hopping place at that time. What what was that like? It was a great place. I worked with a guy named Steve Schoubin. I've mentioned his name a few times today. He's um. He was exceedingly patient and kind with me. He answered uh, millions of my questions. Uh, he's uh he was. He

still is one of the quippiest guys in the business. Quippiest, tuippiest. I mean, he's never at a loss for a quippy comeback. Uh. And you just laughed because he was just so darn fast with him. Lehman was a great place. He was a great place. I just had a chance to be detectical guy at Arnholden splite shorter, and I thought it was a chance to you know, sort of be Uh that's why you jumped from one of men. It wasn't. It wasn't because of any you know, I was um displeased.

On the other side. I just said, you know, here's an opportunity for myself. Um, I asked us Jeff DeGraf um reference, who was Lehman's chief techne. He replaced me at Lehman. Really, Oh, that's hilarious, he said, he goes, he goes. I assure you, it's dumb luck. But he handed his resignation in the day of the old time high. Pretty good timing. Yeah, so uh to set up ren macro. Um, so I go that. That's how you know, guys, a good technician is he quits a publicly traded company and

that marks the high of the day. All right, So let's jump to my favorite questions. I asked all my guests. Um, you you told us about your background. You said you got an m b a from what is now Gibelly School of Management, but uh it's at Fordham. Did you do anything between school and Wall Street? Or you went right from right from college, right from grad school to to finance that's right, yeah, right right in Yeah, nothing in between. And um, obviously I'm gonna ask you who

your early mentors are. Steve Schobin is going to be one of them. My very first boss was a guy named Tom McKee. He was a great boss. He taught me how to do my job responsibly. Uh. And then I worked for Ken Saffie and Saffie Investment Research, and he gave me a lot of freedom to do a lot of things for him and it was a great

learning experience. Steve Schobin, I can't say enough about I worked for a guy named Jeff earlier and John arnhold Arnholden s Bleischroder and both both were gentlemen to me. And while Sorrows Fund Management, I worked for Robert Soros, who was a gentleman to me as well, a very a guy who was always open to technicals and um and looking at markets and charts. And I've been fortunate for the last five years to work for a guy

named Scott Besson who encourages imaginative, imaginative thinking. He's always interested in listening to an idea. He's really pragmatic and he um. He's instilled confidence because he's allowed me the freedom to make a mistake. And I don't want to. I don't want to dismiss that point. You know, we don't want to make mistakes, but you make them. It's the nature of the business. If you're a four hundred hit or you're a rock star, right and you're still making out six out of ten times. Um so he

uh he um. He understands the mistake part of the business, thankfully for me, and I'm lucky to be a part of Key Square and with him. So what other investors influenced how you approach uh markets and investing? So I've tried to listen to anything UH or read anything that these people have said. And some of them I worked with and for, so Steve Chabin, Scott Besson, Howard Marks, who was a value guy, and anything he's ever written.

I've tried to read, you know, his memos when they are you know, every right, UH, Stan druck and Miller's, George Sorrows, Paul Jones, and I really, um, I really appreciate anything that seemed to Leb has to say. I really like his common sense, sort of contrary approach to UH, to the business and to the thinking in the business. Very interesting. Let's let you mentioned reading. Let's talk about some books. What are some of your favorite books, be

they fiction, non fiction, investing, or otherwise. Okay, so I really liked UH a book about the commanches called the The Empire of the Summer Moon, which was really really a fantastic book. Really yeah, just great. I really liked that a lot. I really liked it a lot. With respect to to markets stuff Market Wizards by Jack Swagger, I think is is a required reading. More money than God. Um. I really liked The Creature from Jekyl Island, which by

Edward Griffin that was about the start of the Federal Reserve. Uh. One of my favorites of all time is The Lords of Finance by Ahmed Ahammed, and the subtitle of the book is The Bankers Who Broke the World, which I think is as good as it gets. Manias, Panics and Crashes by Charles Kindleberger Shut Up a Deal by Jesse may Um. I'm a big sports sports book guy as well. I really I recently read a biography about Thai Cobb

which sort of changed away people. Um originally thought about Cobb. Um, he was supposed to be really hard, charging spikes out, no fooling around that he was. He played really hard, and uh, I'd say back then it was sort of you know, killer be killed in baseball. I know I'm making too much of it, but um, there was no fraternizing. But he was thought to have been a bad guy. I'd necessarily think that he was a bad guy. In this new biography, would would would would say that he

wasn't a newer and gentler ty coon or something like that. Um. So since you've joined finance all those years ago, what has changed? What do you think is the most significant changes in the industry over the past. When we got into the business, there was a tremendous broker client component of the business, which to a great degree doesn't exist. Now there's more of an asset gathering component, whereby then

it was more transactional. Uh. And I can remember a lot of guys that I knew in the business they started their career making cold calls. I don't know, is it is it better or worse? This? This change is this? Is this now? Is that a better structure or do you lose something? I think what's changed is that it was easier than to come up with some sort of

sentiment read for the market. I think it's harder now. Uh. And with the individual investor or in an asset gather, you know, having been asset gathered rather than via the old broker method, I think it's harder to figure things

out in that regard. But it's a natural evolution. I think the advent and ubiquity of E t f s, the continued involvement of central bankers, the evolution of central bankers from behind the scenes, practitioners of the hippocratic oath, the virtual financial celebrities, those are all tremendous changes over the last twenty financial celebrities. Yeah, that's the way I tend to think of them. Is that a bad thing or a good thing? Um? Or does it depend on

the celebrity? I I think UM. I think that there's a major shift occurring where investors are moving away from the belief of the omniscience of central bankers. In fact, in my mind, that has been a bubble in its own right, and I think that we are realizing that central bankers are far from omniscient. Well, everybody remembers Greenspan as the maestro, and he left as chairman, and then it didn't take all that long for that reputation to

really unwind. The financial crisis certainly didn't didn't help his reputation. The guy who looked like he was never wrong suddenly, Oh maybe this guy was never right. He just got a little lucky. And I'm amazed that people put so much faith in central bankers after the guy was little. I mean, I remember the CNBC briefcase cam like, how thick or thin is his briefcase and that's whether he'll raise or tighten. That's that's how tightly people track that.

I don't think anybody holds bankers at least with the same you know, belief that they know all the answers. They're certainly important, But did did Greenspan break the spell for that? I think we're in an environment where people are looking at um, for lack of a better phrase, the political financial elite in a different light than they

had in prior cycles. I think so much. So many of their missteps are well categorized, uh or delineated, and that information is well dispersed, whereby perhaps it may have only been in prior cycles. People in our business who are aware of who the head of the central bank was, the public knows that. Not only does the public know who the the head of the central bank is, they know there's a central bank. You go back to twenty years they had no clue. I mean, every every day

you turn around, there's another central banker speaking somewhere. Yeah. I think that they're ubiquitous, both of their presence and their comments. And uh, I think that they're going They'll run through their cycle, just like every other item runs through a cycle. You mentioned Malaby's more money than God. Have you gotten around to his new tone on green Space? I have not. I have the book. I haven't even

cracked it open yet. I'm really curious because, um, my head of research, Mike Battnick, like you loved More Money than God, And that's another book I haven't gotten. I actually started reading it right after I finished reading something else, and they were so similar in who they looked at. And I said, you're I'm gonna put this aside a little bit and come back to it. But I know a number of people who just love that book, think it's great, really, So I'm gonna move that up in

my uh up in my queue. So you mentioned you played ball in school. What do you do to relax outside of the office. What do you do to stay mentally and physically fit so you can do your job? Listen, Like a lot of guys, I like to go to the gym. I like to be active. I like to spend a little time walking down at the Bronx Riviera, which is otherwise known as Orchard Beach, Um the Bronx Riviera. So things like that, How do you are you in

um Bronxville with you? I'm a Westchester guy, but listen, driving down to Orchard Beach from Lower Westchester is an easy thing to do, very easy. Thing to do that. That's pretty uh, that's pretty interesting. Um, so you've been mentored along in your career. What sort of advice would you give a recent college grad or a millennial who was just starting their career and said, Hey, John, I'm thinking about going into technicals. What what would you say

to them? I'd offer no advice, but I'd offer some suggestions. Okay, I'd say, listen intensely, h ask a ton of questions, and read everything you can, everything and anything. Listen intensely, ask lots of questions, and read just about anything you can, not only finance, because I think sometimes your best thinking about finance is when you're not thinking about finance. It

could because you're reading a biography about Billy Martin. It could be because you're reading about the Comanches, an empire, the Summer Moon. It could be because you're reading Lonesome Dub by Larry McMurtry. I don't know, but I think you should read as much as you can. That that

is not an uncommon theme. A number of people who have paid through these doors, billionaires, fund managers, Nobel Prize winners, have all said the same thing that the two themes that come up over and over again reading and you gotta you gotta be in a position to get lucky, because a little luck goes a long way. And our last question, what is it that you know about investing in technicals today that you wish you knew years ago? Everything?

I mean, I wish I knew everything then that I know now, and I haven't learned anything I think in the last ten years. Why say that again, because I think I wish I knew then what I know now. But I feel like, even though I've picked up a lot in the last ten years, there's still so much to learn. And I think every single day you go to work, you know, juiced, not only because you want

to win, but because it's a learning environment. It's an active learning environment, and I think that's a lucky environment to be in. That that's a really interest answer, John, Thank you so much for being so generous with your I'm we have been speaking with John Roque. He is managing director and technical analyst at Key Square Capital Partners

is Apple Management key Square Capital Management. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure and look up an inch or down an inch on Apple iTunes and you could see any of the other hundred and let's call it twelve previous podcasts we've done. We enjoy your comments and feedback. Be sure to write to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. I would be remiss if I did not think Charlie Vollmer, my engineer, H Taylor Riggs, our booker, and Michael Batnick, who is the head of

research for US. I'm Barry Ridults. You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio, brought to you by Bank of America. Merrill Lynch, committed to bringing higher finance to lower carbon named the most innovative investment bank for climate change and sustainability by the Banker that the power of global connections. Bank of America North America member f D I C