Voodoo is widely regarded as a mysterious and sinister practice that’s taboo in many cultures. The mere word conjures images of bloody animal sacrifices, evil zombies, dolls stuck with pins, and dancers gyrating through the hot night to the rhythm of drums.
Voodoo beliefs spread from Africa’s shores to America on slave ships and has since then penetrated the financial community with some of its practice’s adopted by Wall Street sales traders. You won’t find too many sales traders toting shrunken heads or chicken feet, but it’s no secret they’ve incorporated gyrating dancers into their lifestyle, and some of you (we won’t any mention names) have been known to stick a few dolls from time to time.
Wall Streeter’s typically don’t traffic in pig’s blood or host funky rituals to bring about evil, all they have to do is get a large customer order. Let me explain. For some reason even the most level-headed sales traders have the tendency to turn intocomplete assholes the second they get their hand’s on a big enough order. There is an old adage on Wall Street that says, “The one with the order is King!” What people fail to mention is that the king often turns out to be a complete douche. Much like cocaine, large orders have the tendency to intensify the personality traits of the the sales trader controlling the order, and when your dealing with an asshole to begin with, it’s not pretty. For whatever the reason, once these jerk offs strap on their ‘big order goggles’ they see everybody else in the room as inadequate counterparts, feel the need to talk louder, recap over the squawk way too much (especially when managers are around), and usually view the more junior traders as wounded gazelles that need to have their hearts ripped out for no good reason.
There’s one guy in my office, let’s refer to him as Crusty Abe, who is the poster child for this disorder. Ironically, Crusty Abe is older than dirt and one of four dinosaurs on my trading desk. Abe is on borrowed time and is the guy you look at and think… “I had better not still be doing this when I get to be his age.” Forget Indiana Jones, Crusty Abe has been walking this earth for so long there’s a real good chance he knows exactly where the Ark is hidden. Crusty is a real piece of work and the Angel of Death himself. Abe’s favorite pastime is being the first one to point out bad news, bad executions and actually gets off when the market is going to shit. We all feel for Abe’s clerk Joey, he busts his ass for this prick all day and gets nothing but beat up on all day. I’m pretty sure one of Joey’s jobs include chewing Crusty’s food anytime he gets something other than soup for lunch.
Abe sits there all day waiting for the phone ring, trying to solve the Daily Jumble and occasionally nodding off. When the phone does ring, and Father Time does finally land an order… Look out! The dynamics have all changed. Suddenly, as if by magic, Mr. Magoo straps on his ‘goggles’ and transforms into Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket. At this point in the game, Crusty Abe is the only one in the room who knows anything about anything. “No Supers!… Get on your knees and choke yourself!… Don’t advertise…! Nobody make any calls!… Whatever you people do, make sure your not trying to leverage our business with my order!” Why be like this? At this point in his life, he should be thrilled just to spend another day above ground. The only reason the Grim Reaper hasn’t come for him yet is that the Reaper probably fears Crusty Abe just might take his job.
Crusty claims to be an amazing investor. If you don’t mind the smell of formaldehyde, chronic halitosis and are willing to listen, Crusty Abe will go on and on about all his winning investments. What’s amazing is that they were all home runs. Never a single, or a double and never ever has Abe seen one of his investments go sour or under perform. If he’s so fucking brilliant then why doesn’t Crusty Abe run money instead of schlepping into this office every day? According to him, Bill Gross, George Soros and Warren Buffett are all amateurs who haven’t a clue how to run money. Although, giving credit where credit is due, Crusty is an absolute joy to include on lunch prints and is a financial genius when it comes to counting and collecting his change. “I gave you $20, you short changed me! You should have given me back $8.60, not $8”… And he says shit like this with an attitude like your trying to get over on the prick. This guy has had a successful career on Wall Street, ridden every bull market move since 1920 and he’s whining about sixty cents. Blow me.
You do not want to be the trader working the order for Crusty and you don’t want to be the guy who catches the other side of the trade. You can’t win. There’s not enough space in the trading room for anyone to be right except for Abe. He just screams things out like a lunatic, complaining the whole time about volume, price and how we just gapped the stock without ever once even glancing at his screens. I’m convinced it’s some dark form of Alzheimer’s with a touch of Tourette’s. The younger guys (including Joey the Hospice) continue to take his shit, back up what they hope soon will become their own accounts and pray this is the day that Crusty Abe clutches his heart, has a stroke on the desk and keels over.
We’ll all get old… but you don’t have to be an asshole about it,
Dopey
