My Grandfather died and I was distraught with grief. I was 22 years of age, with a 1 year old baby and wife at home in a basement apartment in Brooklyn, trying to make my way on Wall Street as a stockbroker. I grew up in a middle class neighborhood in Flatlands, Brooklyn, raised by a single Mother with the assistance from my Grandparents. My Father had been shot and killed when I was four. Grandfather was all I knew about being a man, treating people with and demanding respect — but he had his issues, namely with his temperament.
My Mother used to tell me he had been physically abusive when she was younger — but I never saw that side of him. After losing most of his vision at 69, Grandfather stood at home a lot — brooding, no longer able to work with his hands; therefore, he and my Grandmother become poor, almost overnight.
When he was younger, he had his own furniture refinishing business, employed a handful of people, and provided for his family to the best of his abilities. He wasn’t the smartest man I’ve ever know, or the most talented, but I loved him the most.
Needless to say, when he died, my mind was going through a significant shock. The specter of never seeing him again seemed like a dream, a bad one. The firm I had been working at was a step above a bucket shop — a second rate house filled with second rate people. Without the benefit of hindsight, I had no way of knowing which firms were any good back then. Back in the late 90s, boiler rooms were as common as Starbucks in Manhattan. I’d regularly bump into people I knew in High School, trouble makers mostly, all trying their hand at some fast money on Wall Street. If you had decent social skills and knew how to spin a yarn, making money through telephone solicitations was like taking candy from a baby.
My first month on my own, after the mandatory apprenticeship, I made $12,500 in commissions. Total take home pay was in the ballpark of $4,500. It was all the money in the world to me and my young family. Previous to that, I was sustaining on a weekly cold callers salary of $200 per week before taxes. I had never known true poverty, desperation, until I was on my own trying to provide for two others.
My sales manager was a man named Peter — a burly Irishman who was long on work ethic, short on talent. He was in charge of the apprenticeship program, filled with a diverse group of amateur stockbrokers all trying to get rich in what was the beginning of the dot com craze.
Some of us worked a lot harder than others. The gent who sat in front of me, Mr. Lee, had recently migrated from China. He’d spend most of his time inquiring into the business of others, taking long lunch breaks visiting brothels, and sparingly calling Chinese restaurant owners in an attempt to drum up some business.
My desk was right in front of Peter’s office. I was situated with a window to the right of me, Mr. Lee in front, and my good pal Joe to the left. Joe was a heavy set Italian from the Bronx, with a thick NY accent, and a heart made of gold. He resembled someone you might see cast in the Sopranos or any number of mafia related movies that we’ve all grown accustomed to mocking. On a daily basis, Joe and I would work together on pitching stock to total strangers, hoping to land a big enough client to justify the long, tedious, hours we spent at the office.
A typical day at the office was non-stop telephone solicitations, from 8am to as late as midnight. We’d organize the leads by time zones to make sure we weren’t calling people while they were in bed, trying to sleep. But every once in a while, we’d accidentally cold call someone in NY at 11:30pm.
The rules for telephone solicitations were simple, as laid out by our sales manager — take the path of least resistance. This meant we should avoid pitching women, since they had a tendency to see through our absurd pitches. Calling New Yorkers was mostly a waste of time, since they were too sophisticated to open an account with a know-nothing upstart smiling and dialing for dollars. The easiest new accounts were to be had in the south, or the midwest — tricking honest, god fearing people to buy whatever we were selling.
Unlike the others in my group, I was more attracted to the idea of making people money more than earning some commissions. I had always wanted to be a stockbroker and I even had a small account for myself — long a new company called America Online. After my father was killed, a wrongful death lawsuit was filed by my mother; and because of this, I came into some money when I was 18. With a portion of the money, I placed some money in American Online — with the belief that the internet was something that was going to be a big deal. Believe it or not, most of the people I talked to about this were not believers — chalking it up to a fad. For a while, I doubted my thesis too, as the stock careened lower from my basis of $42 down to the high teens.
Joe and I were pitching Barnes and Nobles bookstores, because of the recent Amazon IPO. Barnes and Nobles had recently teamed up with Microsoft and our pitch was that no one could defeat the mighty Microsoft and that it wasn’t long before the combined firms laid waste to the volatile Amazon — whose stock traded wildly back then, with wide spreads and ranges that kept most people away from trading it.
We enjoyed varying degrees of success. By the summer of 1998, internet stocks had take a deep plunge lower. Whatever business I had ginned up for myself was essentially dead. Before my grandfather passed away, I had gone 4 consecutive months without taking home any money. My wife and I were living off credit cards, building a grim future together in of debt and failure.
So, after taking a week off from work, I returned to the office and began packing my shit. I knew that taking a week off, no matter what the excuse, would get me fired. Lo and behold, like clockwork, shortly after I was finished packing my stuff, the sales manager called me into his office.
He was a burly Irish man, short on talent, long on work ethic. He was the type of person who always seemed jovial; yet at the same time, everyone knew he’d stick a knife in your back if given the chance. Also, he was known for hiring young reps, only to fire them shortly thereafter, in order to take their books. A regular fuckface, if I might be so bold.
Anyway, I sat down in his office and he said: “Fly, just throw in the towel.” I just sort of looked at him, all cow eyed and shit. He furthered: “This business is not for you. You can make more money as a dishwasher or paper boy. Just hang it up.”
Still depressed over the loss of my Grandfather, coupled with the fact that I was poor as fuck, meekly, I agreed and handed over my book (prior to entering his office, he asked me to bring in my book), without an argument.
Planning ahead, I had secured a place of employment at a small NYSE member firm, where a good friend of mine worked. He allowed me to share an office with him. However, upon transferring over, the market was so bad, due to the LTCM bullshit, hardly any of my clients followed me to the new firm. As a matter of fact, only 3 clients had the balls to come with me.
A few months passed and the market was in idiotic full crisis mode. I was young and overzealous and could not fathom what the fuck was going on. It was surreal. My work hours were consistent, 8am to 11pm. I worked like a fucking slave, often times slacking on the sales front in order to sponge information from the bloomberg terminal. I was an information junky, always reading, studying my trade.
Shortly before the LTCM crisis ended, the owners of the firm asked me to ” go work in the boardroom,” since I was undeserving of an office. They were right and I hated them for it.
By that time, despite being in the business for little more than 1 year, I was burnt out. I spent a week or two looking for a salaried job. My interviews were egregious, mainly because I really hated myself for failing and it showed. I wore it on my sleeve. The fact that I was being forced to find alternative employment, due to early set backs, ate me up inside. Needless to say, because of my poor interviewing skills, I was unable to land discount house gigs, or anything else for that matter. I had a new baby at home and I was living off of credit cards, in stupid basement apartment, Brooklyn, NY. My back was up against the wall.
I went back to work.
Almost immediately after “throwing in the towel” (again), in search for “steady employment,” my life changed for the better.
I could not find a salaried job, so I had to make due with being a piker stockbroker, getting paid 100% by way of commissions. The only problem: I only had a handful of clients and the market was knifing lower daily.
Despite being a destitute poor guy, I had a little money in the market. A few years prior, using all of my savings (6k), I bought stock in a company called America Online, ticker AMER. I needed money desperately; but I was adamant about keeping AMER, for it was my lottery ticket.
I began cold calling a corporate directory. Actually, I was obsessed with opening new accounts with partners of this prestigious firm. I worked long hours and was buying one stock for almost all of my clients: Beyond.com, ticker BYND. I didn’t know much about the market back then. However, I did get a sense that the LTCM induced sell off was about to end. After all, the internet was brand fucking new and everyone was ecstatic over the potential growth prospects.
Nonetheless, times were tough for me at home. I remember going 3 months without making any money. And, when I did get a pay check, it was so small, it hardly covered my monthly nut, which was only $1,200, including rent ($400), food and travel. At work, I didn’t eat lunch, because I could not afford it. And, I didn’t dry clean my shirts; because, well, that shit was expensive. Instead, my wife washed and ironed them at home. I had two suits, both were purchased immediately after I passed the series 7 examination. I thought, like most new brokers in the business, I was going to make a million dollars, right away.
The summer of ’98 was a long arduous time, for me, and most people in the business. I started to experiment with margin, since my assets were bullshit and my clients believed in my internet stock strategy. Aside from BYND, I was buying SEEK, GCTY, AMER, CMGI, and all of the fun, high growth, albeit death spiraling stocks.
I cannot remember exactly what the catalyst was, maybe a special Alan Greenspan interest rate cut; but the market bottomed in the fall of ’98 and never looked back. My position in BYND, inside of a week, went from $8 to $14. SEEK went from $18 to $30. I could not believe my eyes. I had accounts, fully levered into the teeth of the decline, all of a sudden explode to the upside. One small account, which had been beaten up badly, went from $3,000 to $12,000 in a single day. That same account, eventually, went to $90,000.
My largest account, at the time, was about $250,000. That too, within a week, exploded higher— to north of $400,000.
Basically, I got lucky. I was positioned at the right place at the right time. My new clients thought I was some fucking oracle, nailing one trade after another. I remember going on a 20 out of 20 streak. As a matter of fact, I still have some of my old book pages, where I’d log my trades, to prove it.
At my firm, I became the “go to guy” for hot stock tips. I knew the internet sector inside and out, like no one else, and always knew which stock would take off next. I bought At Home, ticker ATHM, before anyone else heard about them, and enjoyed a 200% run inside of a few short months.
I played them all, from YHOO to AMZN to BCST.
Within 6 months of being told to “throw in the towel,” I was doing $45-50k in monthly production. The money came so fast and furious, frankly, I didn’t know what to do with it. First and foremost, I paid off the $25k in credit card debt that I built up. Then, I bought myself a few nice suits a respectable pair of shoes and a $3,000 watch.
Soon enough, I was given an office at my firm. I was more than happy to leave the boardroom, where pikers talked shit and old men slept. I had big plans. One of them entailed seeking revenge on a certain former asshole sales managers. Trust me when I tell you, in no way was I grateful for getting shit canned, immediately following my Grandfathers death.
The dot com craze was in full throttle mode and I was taking full advantage. All of the countless hours spent gawking at the bloomberg terminal, researching about the internet, was transforming ideas into cash, via egregious stock market gains, both professionally and on a personal level. My small America Online position, ticker AMER, had exploded in value and my book of clients was robust.
I staffed up, hiring a sales assistant and several cold callers and account openers. Monthly production was humming along at a brisk 100-275k per month; life was good to say the least. I couldn’t handle the order flow, especially since, back then, every single trade had to be written out on buy or sell tickets. Often times I was unable to eat lunch, due to the enormous burden of order flow at work.
Out of necessity, my work hours were still asinine, 8am to 9pm. It was just part of the job.
I deposited a lot of my personal worth into the stock market, moved out of the basement, into a Brownstone. My friends and family really had no idea how much money I was making, since I kept a low profile. They just thought I was “doing well.”
Every month or so I’d spend thousands of dollars on jewelry for my wife, from a private jeweler. One time, I was counting money, about to head over to my jeweler. I had about 15k spread out all over the desk; suddenly, my sales manager walked in unannounced. He just sort of looked at me, bewildered, as if I was conducting a fucking drug deal or some shit. I still remember the look on his face. Good times.
In addition to stupid diamonds, I spent a lot of money on sales leads, thousands of dollars worth. Somehow, someway, I was able to purchase the entire book of client contact information of my old nemesis— that fuck faced sales manager, who had fired me 2 years prior.
I went to work.
I was obsessed with exacting revenge on that fucker, who had fired me and took my book of business, immediately after my Grandfather’s death. One by one, methodically, I convinced his clients to leave him and transfer to me. It was like taking stupid from a cold caller.
Granted, it was a diabolical plan, one that I would never inflict on anyone else. However, he deserved it and more. He was stealing books for years. He had no talent, so he back stabbed his way into a lofty position.
Payback is a motherfucker.
In a period of two months time, I had successfully transferred more than 30 of his clients and millions in assets from him to me. It got so bad, so egregious, my sales manager came into my office one day, displaying a “cease and desist” order, from a certain vanquished former sales manager. I viewed it as an offer of surrender; so I stopped calling his book.
Years later, incidentally, we worked at the same firm together, again. But he never said a word to me about the whole ordeal.
Hence the term was born: “The Fly” wins all the time, even when he appears to be losing badly.
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