When I'm not hosting this podcast, I am writing books, but it is really hard for me to write when I'm at home, so I like to find remote cabins in the middle of nowhere to just hang out and write. But I hate the idea of my house just sitting empty doing nothing but collecting dust and definitely not collecting tracks. And that's why I'm an Airbnb host. It's one of my all-time favorite side hustles. Other popular side hustles are awesome too, don't get me wrong, but they often involve big startup costs. By hosting your space, you're monetizing what you already have access to.
And if you're new to the side hustle game and you're anxious about getting started, don't worry because you're not in this alone. Airbnb makes it super easy to host. I mean, if I could do it, you could do it. And your home might be worth a lot more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. I'm Nicole Lapin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for somebody to read.
When the New York Stock Exchange was established, the very first thing it did was shut people out. Seriously. In 1792, all the reputable stock brokers in New York got together to sign what they called the button wood agreement. A truce basically that set out to make investing more trustworthy by keeping con artists who claimed to be stock brokers outside the exchange.
At the time, this was a pretty significant problem. These con artists would basically sell people stocks based on flat out lies about the investment opportunities. And the prevalence of this made Americans skeptical about the whole investing system. So broker started to trade behind closed doors of the stock exchange to keep out the scammers. But closed doors didn't shut out only the bad guys. It shuts out everyone.
And the button wood agreement retail investors don't have the same access to the stock exchange as brokers do. Until today, in today's episode, I actually go to the New York Stock Exchange to chat with Peter Tuckman, a stock broker at the New York Stock Exchange who has been called the Einstein of Wall Street.
And he definitely has the personality to back up such a big reputation. I wanted to ask the most common questions about how stock exchanges work, who's who on Wall Street, and what a seasoned broker is anticipating to be the biggest investing opportunities of 2023.
And he had spoken with Peter eons ago when I was at CNBC and have been a huge fan of his ever since. But this conversation exceeded even my high expectations, which is rare on Wall Street. In fact, it exceeded those expectations so much that I gave Peter a whole podcast on our network, Money News Network.
To be the first to hear more about the official announcement and to hear more about the show, of course, follow Money News Network on Instagram. It's at Money News. But let's get to the main event. Here's my conversation with Peter. Welcome to Money Rehab. Thank you. So let's start at the beginning. Okay. When did you start here? I started here 137 years ago. I went to high school with Alexander Hamilton. And I was here for the inauguration of George. He's outside.
It happened right outside the building. I started here in 1985. When did the Einstein stick come about? The Einstein stick. So I, it's actually Aaron Burnett, who is on CNN. And she used to be with a CNBC on the floor. And we were friends and Mark Haynes, who was another man. He's unfortunately passed away. They used to, they used to call me Einstein. And I think it was really Aaron who started and they would always joke.
Mark Haynes would sit outside smoking a cigarette every morning on the fire hydrant. And when I'd walk in, he'd go, Hey, Einstein, you're having a good hair day. That means that the market's going to be up today. But you are the most photographed guy on Wall Street. How did that happen? I am. You know, look, the floor was not a place where there was a lot of media back in the old days. There was just no place for it.
And there was always a couple of straight pictures that came out. There was a guy named Alan Gershowitz, who they called the market dude. And whenever they took a picture, he was the one. And then in 2007, I believe it was, I'm not sure it was one of the biggest down days we had. He was about to retire.
And he sort of they, they took a photograph of me and that day they interviewed him. And he said he was retiring and he was going to sort of pass the baton to me as the next market dude. And that picture turned out was on the front page of the daily news. And then sort of, and it was a big hit. It was me throwing my hands up in the air. And, and then the post ended up interviewing me the next day to see like, who is this guy? What does he do? Is he really the next market dude?
And that kind of started this deluge of photographs that ended up with Reuters and Getty Images and Associated Press. So just to clarify, these are the pictures like if you're reading a story about the market, these are the stock photos that are used. Correct. Absolutely. And they are, they're real photos. You know, they're not, you're not allowed to post for those photos. And so that's real emotion. You know, I really I trade other people's money.
And so it's important to me if we have a successful day. And I'm a very emotional guy. I'm adrenaline driven and I, you know, and I love the energy and I love what I do. So those emotions tend to be real. So on an update, you'll see emotions on a down day. You'll see emotions. And, you know, look, media loves to capture excitement and faces and emotion, right? So I'm sort of the drama.
Right. Exactly. Trauma drama, trauma, excitement, depression and all of it. And I'm the most expressive guy down here. So I became the face of Wall Street. And you bring the energy of the olden days, as you said. So when I started on the floor of the Merck, there was open outcry trading. Everybody was yelling. Everybody was screaming.
I think a lot of people think of the stock exchange like that still. They don't realize that it's quiet vibes now. Right. So you would give anything to have open outcry trading. Come back. But can you explain why that left and what the heck they were doing back then when they were yelling screaming, making emotions? So if anyone's ever been to an auction, look, an auction market is you have buyers and sellers. You've got reasons why people are willing to engage in that.
The stock market is where we trade thousands of equities, right? So open outcry is basically screaming and yelling. And that kind of engagement is what happened. It was crazy. It was wild. You have to realize that when somebody's buying something, depending on their intent behind it and why they're doing it, there's a sort of, you know, they're taking up position. They're spending money.
So there's emotion behind it. There's intent and cash is being spent. So there's excitement and emotion around it. I love that kind of energy. And I would bring it back in a minute if I could. So you were talking about other markets, just negotiating. It's a negotiation. And there were hand signals too, like almost like in baseball. So the New York Stock Exchange did not use hand signals as much as the American Stock Exchange. Right. So there was American Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange.
And then you had the SIBO. You were you were trading commodity, right? You guys traded orange juice and plywood and gold and oil and stuff like that. You were actually in the pits, open outcry doing stuff like that. Here we did use hand signals, but it was more screaming and yelling. The hand signals that people think of were done on the American Stock Exchange.
So the way the American Stock Exchange, which is a few blocks down from here, that traded equities the same as we did, but the way the room was set up, there was a balcony on the top. And the pits were down below. And so you wanted to explain to your trader who was in the pit, what his instructions were without telling anyone next to him what you wanted to do.
Because if everyone knew, it's like if you walk out to a poker game and you've got four aces and you put them forward, everyone knows you have four aces. No one's going to play against you. So the same thing in an auction market, there's certain things that you hold close to your cup. So there was a way to get information down from the balcony to the pits here.
We use phones, we use squads and we would run back and forth and sort of scream and yell and our voice. I did. I did have the I was the loudest most obnoxious trader in history for sure. So when somebody says they need like a stock broker, they're probably thinking of a financial advisor who's working for them. A broker isn't working for a customer.
Correct. So an old in the old days, a stock broker who represents a brokerage firm, whether it's Merrill Lancer, Smith Barney, the old school brokers, were the guys who were your financial advisor who took your money and they created a portfolio for you and traded it. Those were called stock brokers. We are traders. So those guys would actually send us orders right down to the floor and then we would get them as brokers.
Once I received an order to buy a hundred thousand shares of Disney, I would have to go to the market maker who traded Disney. Now all the order flow from around the world who want to trade the Disney stock would go through that market maker. I would then walk in and say, hey, Joe, how's Disney? And it's say we've got three buyers. They're willing to pay a quarter. We've got a seller at three a. And a seller at a half, hey Peter, what do you want to do?
And then I would open up my either depending on what my instructions were. I would either say I'll take stock at three a. And I'll bid a quarter. It would then be initiator commenced the negotiation. And I'd look at the other buyer and say, hey guys, I'm a buyer of a hundred thou. What do you want to do? Maybe we should pay a half.
And so we would can together start talking to sort of engage each other to find out what's everybody want to do. I mean, it was sort of a wonderful, you know, we may spend a minute there and we'd be aggressive buyers. And we'd spend an hour there talking to our buddies, deciding what to do. It's sort of like a poker game that way. But the market maker was there to orchestrate putting buyers and sellers together.
You keep saying market maker. If somebody's listening and doesn't know what that is, can you explain how that works? Sure. So there are brokers, brokers represent institutions or customers, high wealth people or hedge funds or institutions. And these are not financial advisors, not at all. Now these are people boots on the ground, traders on the crowd at the point of execution. It's important to make that distinction.
A broker and a trader is the person who actually executes stock. A market maker is basically it's a totally different job. They represent the brokerage, the market making firm that they work under. They are allocated stocks by the New York Stock Exchange and they're there to create a smooth and active market. So you think of it as a broker trader. I'm a passenger on a plane. If you think the market maker, he's the pilot.
Okay, so the pilot of the plane is there to create a smooth and active market. If you run into turbulence, that market maker will step in. If there are three sellers and two buyers, the market maker will step in and be the third buyer to consummate a trade. If there are three buyers and two sellers, the market maker will sell stock. When there's nothing but sellers and there are no buyers, the market maker needs to step in to stabilize the stock.
If there's nothing but buyers and no sellers, the market maker, that's his job. He's there to create liquidity within a stock and he buys and sells all day representing the corporation to keep the stocks. So if somebody is listening to this and they want to start investing, they would want to look for a financial advisor who almost like a dietician versus a broker who is like a butcher. So the dietician is working for you and your goals.
And then the butcher would be there to make your meal for you and just sell you the meat, right? And not say, hey, you should have some vegetables. You're not going to butcher and he's not going to say like actually have some broccoli. So yes, you're absolutely right. If I want to invest in the market and it's not something I want to get involved in personally, I would go out and find a financial advisor.
And that's really not an easy thing to do. They're all different kinds of them. And so I beg everyone who's listening, who's a first time investor, to do your due diligence. Find out who these people are.
And then you know, go to one of the more established ones. If you're sort of, you know, trying to trade and create a large portfolio. What's happening now over the last number of years is a lot of people because stock market has become cool, you know, whether it's COVID, the meme stocks, the free trading apps, the democratization of the whole investment community after realize that what happened for a hundred years
is that we're barriers to entry for most people who don't know who did not have money to get into the stock market, right? You had to become an accredited investor in order to invest in the stock market. That means to be very particular meant that you have to, if whatever money you were investing, if you yet actually signed a piece of paper that said 100% of your investment, if you were to lose it, would have no effect on your standard of living for five years.
Now, I don't know that many people who can actually say that because that means you're a rich person, right? And that's why there are only very wealthy people involved in the stock market. And that's kind of a shame, right? So the your basic Joe or Mary on the street could not actually invest in stock. What ended up happening during COVID was it was this phenomenon, this movement, right?
Whether it had to do with COVID, everyone was at home, Wall Street bets or Reddit, whether it was Robin Hood or Webow, whatever ended up happening was, there was sort of this perfect storm that happened where suddenly anybody with an iPhone and 10 bucks could suddenly be a trader or an investor in the stock market. And I think it's a good thing. You know, what's ended up how well?
Well, it turns out it's a great thing. Not everyone's embracing it. I'm embracing it because at the end of the day, if it will, these people will be the future of the investment community. And you know, the stock market has been a bit of an exclusive. And now it's very inclusive for anybody who wants to invest in the market. And that's a good thing.
However, I knew there was a fun. However, what's super important, which is sort of what I've taken on as somebody who's been here for 137 years is that everyone who was given an iPhone and $10 and the access to the stock market, they were not given the rule book or the playbook on how to do it successfully. So everybody who bought stock on May 20, 2020 with their stimulus check when they were, you know, quarantined at home with COVID and they bought GameStop or AMC at $2.4, $10.
And they watched it go up and they suddenly were posting pictures of them on their Bugatti with $10,000. Did not realize that the stock that goes from 2 to 483 can go right back down to 2. And if you don't sell it when it's up at 400, it's not about how much money you make. It's how much you keep. So that rule book, it's like if I wanted to become a pilot, I could not go to Titor Barrow.
I was going to say it's like, I don't know how this is crazy ESP. It is. It, to me, it seems like you're just letting somebody in the cockpit without... It's 100% like that. Like in a nuclear reactor just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Exactly. If you got in and you got out and you made a bunch of money, I wish you the best because it's not to hate it's a beautiful thing.
But if you didn't and you thought you suddenly had diamond hands and you were not humble about the fact that, you know, and honest about the fact that you actually ended up losing money and not making money. And you did not do the homework and you did not get that memo that stocks not only go up, they do go down and that you need to learn the tools to make yourself a profitable trader and negotiate this market successfully.
Well, then it's a shame because 9 out of 10, this is a fact 9 out of 10 people who attempt day trading do not succeed. And so I sort of took it up on myself with my partner David Green right around the beginning of COVID. We saw this influx of 40 million new retail traders and we knew that 9 out of 39,900 of them were not going to make it. We thought what a great opportunity to share what we know we've learned about technical analysis risk management and the rule book, right?
And share it with them and that's what we've done. Hold on to your wallets. Money rehab will be right back. Do you ever get FOMO fear of missing out? Well, do you ever get FOMO to PITO fear of missing out on the perfect hire? If so, I have the antidote. It's LinkedIn jobs. LinkedIn jobs helps you hire professionals. You can't find anywhere else, even those who aren't actively searching for a new job, but might be open to the perfect role.
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Well, you did two interesting things you made this distinction whether you're a trader or an investor. Correct. Super different things. We are teaching them to be traders and investor is someone who makes a long term bet in the market investing in a company that they like responsible investing. But people invest in a company because they like the product. They like their guidance. They're like what they're doing from a profitable point of view.
I like Nike's everyone's wearing them. I'm going to buy Nike. I love Apple. Everyone's got an iPhone. I think the company's going to do good. I want to be in it for the long term. That's investing trading is making short bits of money on a daily basis. So at the end of the day, I have make some green at the end of the week. I'm greener at the end of the month. I'm greener.
That is day trading. That is scalping people call it scalping. Whether it's day trading or not. It's making small bits of money on short term trades. Whether it's a minute, five minutes an hour or a day. Every day trying to become profitable on a daily basis, creating some disposable income. Totally different experiences. Totally different mindset. Totally different thing.
And who is trading for versus long term investing? So as in the new days, you add money. You gave it to a broker. They did the trading for you. Then people sort of took it upon themselves. They are have a good job. They have a 401k or what it may be. They make a judgment. People who love the stock market, who love investing, will make a decision that they want to invest for themselves. They'll do their homework.
And it takes a lot of homework to analyze a stock. What products are on the pipeline? What the guidance looks like going for it. And they'll invest in a company for the long term. They're a trader, a young person or an older person who likes the action. Some people are gamblers. Some people like to go to a sports game and watch the game. And some people like to bet on the game.
And some people who come to the stock market and who want to bet on the market, they want to bet that game stop goes from two to 20 or Nike goes from 106 down to 80 or whatever it is. It's people whose Wall Street has gotten their attention. The accessibility to trade the market has opened up.
Given the availability to find a free no charge trading app where they could buy and sell, the internet has exploded in information. And people who are sort of false advisors and fake advisors telling everybody what to buy and sell. And those guys are bad actors. So be careful if you're following a lot of them.
Well, no names. Right. I'm not going to mention any names. But look, let's think everyone's seen the movie Wall Street, the wolf of Wall Street. Jordan Balford. That was based on he's a bad guy. And I don't like to diss anybody. But what Jordan Balford did back in those days was he did what's called the classic pump and dump.
He would buy a bunch of stock. Then he would have his little minions. It have his little minions go out and call everybody and say we recommend XYZ when they've already taken a big position in XYZ. And the thousand people following them would go buy it. And when they were buying it, he'd be selling it.
There are a lot of people on the internet right now who for $7.99 or $25 a month will sell you price stock targets stock picks and financial advice. And what they do is they create a huge community by creating all this false enthusiasm around a company that tell you this is a great one.
And look at that stock and la la la they'll have a community of 5,000 people they'll go out and buy a bunch of shares for themselves. Then they'll put it out on Instagram or on discord or on Reddit and say I like XYZ. I like whatever. And then everyone rushes into buy it. And when you're buying it, they're selling it.
And the stock will go up on big volume and then you'll see it go down. So those are the bad actors in the space. Trading has often been synonymous with getting rich quick versus long term investing, which is like this slow study burn. Do you recommend people are long term investors as well before they start trading.
And not really answer that. I'm not allowed to talk about individual stocks or our B or financial advisor, but I having analyzed the markets on a day to day hour to hour week to week month to month basis for as long as I've been here.
And I'm stock markets have gone up right the S&P is outperform most everything over the last as many years as it's been here every crisis and crash and I don't use that word lightly because we've really only had a few even though people feel if the markets down a thousand that is a crash and that's really not the crash of 29.
And so I think that's the time of the 70s the crash of 87 the bubble of 2000 and COVID those were legitimate crashes over time those have been were by better buying opportunities than selling opportunities.
I think everyone young people there is a saying that if a young person at the age of 20 were to put I'm saying this hypothetically if they were to put $250 into the S&P 500 and I'm not recommending this over every month then by the age of 40 they would have $600,000 at the age of 60 they would have $1.6 million cost averaging right.
And so that would be investing in your future in a financial instrument that over time has proven to be successful. So I think everyone should do that hypothetically people should invest in stocks and not stuff.
Okay, this is one of my messages which I learned which I learned right down here on the floor which is we don't look we are the greatest consumer generation of our in history we always have to have the next sneaker the next iPhone the next this the next that even though if you look in your closet we are.
So much stuff that we don't really use or need if I could say anything that would sort of inspire a young person that if your iPhone 13's not broken you may not need the iPhone 14 maybe take that money and buy a couple of shares of Apple and I'm not recommending you do that couldn't agree more in my last book I talk about how I always wanted this Tiffany bracelet growing up I couldn't afford it and when I finally could afford it I ran out to the Tiffany store in New York and I want to be able to do that.
And I went to go see that exact bracelet and I was like this is the time I'm going to make it and this is going to feel like the status that I finally got this bracelet I was so jealous of all these other girls wearing. Then I left and I called my broker at the time and I bought Tiffany stock instead. There you go. So we're totally on the same wavelength and I that's the greatest thing that people can do.
I agree but if they're investing for the very first time do you think it's wise to buy individual stocks versus you can buy in like a stock to the S&P 500 that you mentioned you can buy into an index instead people would ask me in the middle of the pandemic. So I think I can agree on that. I think we can agree on that. And second should I buy zoom I'm a first time investor but zoom I hear is crushing it.
So should that be my first for a okay so zoom that nobody really heard of before the pandemic went from 20 to 400 and went right back down to 20 basically.
So the bottom line is if and I can't really tell you what to do but look an individual stock will go up and down on on profitability of the company and whether they're doing good things or not doing good things and they are basically at the risk of something bad happen the market changing a global pandemic a war whatever they're connected to a defense company does better when we're in war.
You know a an airline company does poor during a pandemic any commerce company goes up during a pandemic so you need to sort of get an oversight of what the world's doing at a time but investing in companies that make money no matter what's going on is probably a good thing to do exposure to one company you are at risk if something goes wrong with that company and that can happen in this crazy world from one minute to the next in this market we go up and down a thousand points in an hour right you can be an bear market in the morning in a bull market.
In the morning in a bull market in the afternoon what you just said was there are these things called financial instruments like the S&P 500 which are 500 stocks put together in a basket which gives you this global footprint of basically the American economy and global economy and so if you want exposure to all that and you're a buyer of the world and life then probably an investment in the S&P 500 is a good one.
But you're suggesting is kind of like the shaded part of that then diagram almost like trading and long term investing or cautious responsible investing sometimes when you think about trading you're thinking of this got rich quick schemes but what you're advocating is trading responsibly. So it's sort of the middle shaded part.
So you can really look not everybody's going to be look as I said suddenly the barriers to entry for a trader and investor are down and anybody can do it because you can day trade risk like so called responsible index funds. So you can day trade stocks you can day trade funds you can day trade ETFs it doesn't matter as long as you don't trade on hope is not a trading strategy.
So FOMO fear of missing out is not a trading strategy uncle herbie on the internet telling you to buy something is not a trading strategy fundamental analysis is kind of risky in this crazy world we live in because the markets are so volatile markets that go up and down as volatility volatility as these do one must know the rules about having a stop order risk management money management the psychology of trading is a really important thing.
So I have one little person on your shoulder going I'm a genius I got diamond hands I'm going to make a million dollars and then there's the other one who's more conservative saying I'm up 50 bucks let me take a profit I'll get into another trade later so that's the paradox and so I beg fee people to air on the side of caution and less risky in a market that goes up on a day you know up thousands of points in any given time.
So you mentioned these downturns and you listed them do you think we could go into one and if so when we were all watching during COVID and the markets stopped or these breakers you were here sure sure I was here sure and can that happen again and how do you prepare.
So the markets go up markets go down we've learned that right a lot of the anxiety and unknowns about what's going on globally are still very much alive markets don't like unknowns they don't like anxiety so the market if you ask me is the market going to go up or down the answers yes and most people won't tell you that I told that to Neil Cabuto once and it was like the head of the day because no one saying that everyone saying it's going here it's going to go there I don't predict anything I have no opinion it's going anywhere circuit breakers let's talk about for a minute.
So we have here on the stock exchange if the market goes down 7% we slow down if it goes down 10% on the Dow or the S&P 500 I don't know the particular numbers we actually stop for 15 minutes we give everybody a chance to see where the berries bodies buried what's really going on kind of digest the news and then we reopen if we go down again it's a time out exactly and if you have a kid you know that a time out can do only but not everything but.
Exactly and then if we go down again once again then we stop for a little bit longer and then basically what you don't want to do is to disadvantage the actual companies and the investors to have an overreaction that may be out of the out of the guardrails.
So we end the episodes with one financial tip you can take to the bank you have I think a whole bank of tips you can take to the bank but if you could pick just one I think it's important to invest in stocks and not stuff we love to buy things you know I'm a firm believe in.
It's not something I've been that great at but if you see something you really love walk around the block for 20 minutes before you go and buy it like you did with that Tiffany bracelet you know we always think we need something just because we want it and that may not be the case if you're a young person and you want to get invest in your future then that's a great place to start that if something is not broken you don't need the next one and so if I could just say anything to anybody invest in stocks and not stuff.
Money rehab is a production of money news network I'm your host Nicole Lapin our executive producer is Morgan Levoi do you need some money rehab and let's be honest we all do so email us your money questions at money rehab at money news network dot com to have your question answered on the show or even have a one on one intervention with me and follow us on Instagram at money news and tick tock at money news network for exclusive video content.
And lastly thank you seriously thank you for listening and investing in yourself which is the most important investment you can make. You