The Firm

Yesterday was Columbus Day and while most people had the day off and were busy enjoying the free time, I went to work with my friend (and soon to be boss?) Louis to watch, listen and learn about what I now believe will be my new career.

Lou picked me up at 3:40am and we sped through the Battery tunnel arriving at 80 Broad Street (2 blocks from the exchange) at 3:55am - surprisingly there is no traffic at that hour, even in New York. After scanning into the building, we went up to the 7th floor offices of Garden State Securities ("the firm") which is an affiliate of RBC (the Royal Bank of Canada). There I met the crew, most of whom were already busy working the phones - calling the UK, which is where they do most of their business.

The office is not a large one but, due to the large number of flat screens (including a giant one on the wall), one can very quickly succumb to information overload. In spite of all the high-tech stuff, it was easy to see that the phones were the real backbone of the operation. I spent a lot of time listening to Efram and Stuart qualifying prospective leads (somewhat monotonous, but hardly rocket science) and I listened to Louis and James (the senior brokers and grand-high-muck-a-mucks) pitching stocks to clients.

At 7:30am we all took a break and went out for lunch - yeah, that's right, "lunch" at 7:30am! The nice thing is that there are no lines at that hour, however, my biological clock is still recovering. We did some skills-drilling after lunch (there is definitely and art to sales) and then at 8:45 I got to listen in on a conference call between the Wall St. office (where I was), the Jersey office and the London office, run by the senior GSS analyst. He gave us all the skinny on where the markets stood (including the European and the Asian markets) and what he expected to happen. He spent some time explaining that the markets were not responding to the macroeconomics designed to reign them in, and seemed to be rallying strictly on emotion - the message in short: cover your asses (and assets). He said that silver was looking really good, suggested a couple of other picks that were worth pitching aggressively, and closed with a preview of what to expect from the earnings reporting (starting off with ALCOA) that was beginning later that morning.

We knocked off at 1:30pm and went down the the street fair on Broadway, where we wandered around for a little while, then it was back through the Battery Tunnel for the 15 minute ride home. All in all, it was a fascinating behind the scenes look at just how easily gigantic sums of money change hands, and what is really driving the world's markets. It was also what I needed to see in order to come to believe that this is where my future lies. If all goes well, I'd like to start working there as of November 1st - I'll keep you posted.

P.S. Monkeyshines is in the works - stay tuned sports fans!