Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Wisenthal.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Wisenthal.

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Tracy, I know I'm biased, We're probably biased. I'm certainly biased.

Tracy, I know I'm biased, We're probably biased. I'm certainly biased.

Speak for yourself, Joe, I myself have no emotions. That's for our opinions about anything.

Speak for yourself, Joe, I myself have no emotions. That's for our opinions about anything.

That's why I host a podcast.

That's why I host a podcast.

That's right, we're the question askers, we're not the answers. But I am sort of biased about anyone who sort of grew up in financial media in like the two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine era, two thousand and seven. You know, like we're just a different breed. We're just a different we're just a little cut above.

That's right, we're the question askers, we're not the answers. But I am sort of biased about anyone who sort of grew up in financial media in like the two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine era, two thousand and seven. You know, like we're just a different breed. We're just a different we're just a little cut above.

I think it was definitely a moment in financial media that I think has yet to be recaptured because there were two things that were happening simultaneously. So one you had the financial crisis where everything was going haywire, and it was all going haywire in a relatively new way. Yes, people had to suddenly learn what synthetic CDOs were, how the revered the show, Okay, how the repo market worked. Didn't learn all of that, and then at the same time, you had like a big format change because you had all these blogs that suddenly burst out of nowhere. And at that time, the combination of like the new blogging format plus the news cycle itself, which was so weird and so fast paced, really meant that blogs were kind of the perfect platform to cover the financial crisis. They had an edge at that time. And I feel again to your point, probably a bit of personal bias there, but like I feel like it was a very special moment.

I think it was definitely a moment in financial media that I think has yet to be recaptured because there were two things that were happening simultaneously. So one you had the financial crisis where everything was going haywire, and it was all going haywire in a relatively new way. Yes, people had to suddenly learn what synthetic CDOs were, how the revered the show, Okay, how the repo market worked. Didn't learn all of that, and then at the same time, you had like a big format change because you had all these blogs that suddenly burst out of nowhere. And at that time, the combination of like the new blogging format plus the news cycle itself, which was so weird and so fast paced, really meant that blogs were kind of the perfect platform to cover the financial crisis. They had an edge at that time. And I feel again to your point, probably a bit of personal bias there, but like I feel like it was a very special moment.

It was you nailed it exactly. It was the two things happening at once that made that a distinct time, which is right, all this stuff was happening, and there were just new formats, and then you know, Twitter came around then, so, uh do you know, and I joined I tweet a lot. Do you know when I joined Twitter?

It was you nailed it exactly. It was the two things happening at once that made that a distinct time, which is right, all this stuff was happening, and there were just new formats, and then you know, Twitter came around then, so, uh do you know, and I joined I tweet a lot. Do you know when I joined Twitter?

Uh?

Uh?

Two thousand and nine, No.

Two thousand and nine, No.

March two thousand and eight, Okay, And I was at south By Southwest when bear Sterns collapsed, and and then you know, it was before everyone knew that the world was totally melting down. But also then I remembered I have like distinct memories of that time because you know, JP Morgan made that two dollars per share offer for bear Sterns, and like a week before bear Sterns have been trading at like sixty or something like that. And I very distinctly remember a few people on Twitter talking about like know that because people thought there was a typo, remember like oh, it must be twenty or something like that. And I saw these voices who actually knew what they were talking about, like, no, this two dollars makes sense, this is a real number, et cetera. Eventually, I think they bought them for like ten dollars a share because the government pressured them. But that was the first place it was like I was getting information from people who knew what they were talking about faster and sharper than I was getting any other platform.

March two thousand and eight, Okay, And I was at south By Southwest when bear Sterns collapsed, and and then you know, it was before everyone knew that the world was totally melting down. But also then I remembered I have like distinct memories of that time because you know, JP Morgan made that two dollars per share offer for bear Sterns, and like a week before bear Sterns have been trading at like sixty or something like that. And I very distinctly remember a few people on Twitter talking about like know that because people thought there was a typo, remember like oh, it must be twenty or something like that. And I saw these voices who actually knew what they were talking about, like, no, this two dollars makes sense, this is a real number, et cetera. Eventually, I think they bought them for like ten dollars a share because the government pressured them. But that was the first place it was like I was getting information from people who knew what they were talking about faster and sharper than I was getting any other platform.

And who were those people too?

And who were those people too?

I think one of them was Howard Lindzen and I think another one was Roger Ehrenberg, which were like two of the names who are like, you know based, But anyway, there were many other names, including someone we're going to talk to right now.

I think one of them was Howard Lindzen and I think another one was Roger Ehrenberg, which were like two of the names who are like, you know based, But anyway, there were many other names, including someone we're going to talk to right now.

I'm very excited.

I'm very excited.

So the person we're about to speak to, I remember linking to his stuff right when I started financial blogging, which was September two thousand and eight on ft Alphavil and again the world blowing up around that time, Lehman collapsing all of that, and I remember constantly linking to his stuff at the time.

So the person we're about to speak to, I remember linking to his stuff right when I started financial blogging, which was September two thousand and eight on ft Alphavil and again the world blowing up around that time, Lehman collapsing all of that, and I remember constantly linking to his stuff at the time.

And then the other thing.

And then the other thing.

This is kind of weird, but the other thing I associate with our guests. The first time I ever met him in person was in New York, and that was the last time I ever drank a blue moon, because I think I have like three of them. Yeah, yeah, but it was too much. And ever since then I never again. No blue moons, but yes, lots of lots of our guest for sure.

This is kind of weird, but the other thing I associate with our guests. The first time I ever met him in person was in New York, and that was the last time I ever drank a blue moon, because I think I have like three of them. Yeah, yeah, but it was too much. And ever since then I never again. No blue moons, but yes, lots of lots of our guest for sure.

Well, I'm really excited. I think it's his first time coming on the show. We are going to be speaking to the one and only Josh Brown, a legend. Back in the old days, when we were linking to his blog, it was the reform broker. He son set it that he's a new he writes a new.

Well, I'm really excited. I think it's his first time coming on the show. We are going to be speaking to the one and only Josh Brown, a legend. Back in the old days, when we were linking to his blog, it was the reform broker. He son set it that he's a new he writes a new.

Blue moved on to bigger things. For sure.

Blue moved on to bigger things. For sure.

We've done too much bigger things, but that was huge. He's currently the CEO of Ridholt's Wealth Management. He is the author of a brand new book You Weren't Supposed To See That Secrets every investor should know. I'm so excited. He hosts a popular podcast as well to compound. Josh Brown, thank you so much for coming on.

We've done too much bigger things, but that was huge. He's currently the CEO of Ridholt's Wealth Management. He is the author of a brand new book You Weren't Supposed To See That Secrets every investor should know. I'm so excited. He hosts a popular podcast as well to compound. Josh Brown, thank you so much for coming on.

Outlaws, Tracy. I'm drinking a blue moon right now.

Outlaws, Tracy. I'm drinking a blue moon right now.

That's perfect.

That's perfect.

Josh. Do you remember that?

Josh. Do you remember that?

I can deal as long as it's you and not me. That's good.

I can deal as long as it's you and not me. That's good.

Josh.

Josh.

Do you remember the where we met the first time? Do you remember where it was?

Do you remember the where we met the first time? Do you remember where it was?

I remember? Oh man, you do remember? Okay, I'm going to take a guess. I remember there was one night where Scott Bell got all the bloggers together at the Campbell Apartment on the on the Vanderbilt side of Grand Central, and that's like a speakeasy bar. And I remember meeting a lot of people who were writing and tweeting about markets the first time that night, and I think you were one of them. I'm not sure, so it was that night.

I remember? Oh man, you do remember? Okay, I'm going to take a guess. I remember there was one night where Scott Bell got all the bloggers together at the Campbell Apartment on the on the Vanderbilt side of Grand Central, and that's like a speakeasy bar. And I remember meeting a lot of people who were writing and tweeting about markets the first time that night, and I think you were one of them. I'm not sure, so it was that night.

My recollection is a little different. I thought we went to the Michael Jordan's Steakhouse, which is also in Grand Central and just on the.

My recollection is a little different. I thought we went to the Michael Jordan's Steakhouse, which is also in Grand Central and just on the.

We might have done both.

We might have done both.

We might have done both, but we both agree. I think it was probably two thousand and nine Grand Central, either in the Campbell Apartment or the Michael Jordan's Steakhouse, which sadley is no longer there, but yeah, that was the first time, and now we're here.

We might have done both, but we both agree. I think it was probably two thousand and nine Grand Central, either in the Campbell Apartment or the Michael Jordan's Steakhouse, which sadley is no longer there, but yeah, that was the first time, and now we're here.

It was a Cambrian explosion of market commentators who were coming from non traditional market commentary backgrounds prior to that moment, just to button up what Tracy was saying. Prior to that moment, most of the people who were commenting on markets in a big way and were able to get their views out to the public were coming from Wall Street or were traditional journalists, and you know, they were like the public relations firm would book the person on TV, the person would go on Bloomberg or on CNBC, and you know, they were like they had pedigree, and they also had guardrails. They had things that they wouldn't they weren't able to touch because they were connected to like a Fortune five hundred company. And then all of a sudden, this Cambrian explosion on the Internet. All of a sudden, you've got people amassing large followerships who have no pedigree, who have no publicist, and who have no guardrails and are able to say things that you know, other people would gasp at. But then that became the mainstream, and then all of a sudden, the media was picking up those voices rather than the traditional voices that they had been so accustomed to booking. And I think all three of us, you know, benefited from having been early and visible in that era and to this day, like a lot of the people that came out of the woodwork at that time are you know, now part of the establishment. So it was a really cool thing to be a part. I can count yeah, listen, I could count on on maybe two hands the people who are talking about finance on Twitter in March of two thousand and nine. When I started, it was a really small group of people because most professionals had compliance departments that just would not let them talk that way. Now of course, now, of course the compliance department is like when are you starting a podcast? So it's it's changed a lot. But we were there, the three of us, and you know, we can come up with a whole bunch of the names, but there aren't that many.

It was a Cambrian explosion of market commentators who were coming from non traditional market commentary backgrounds prior to that moment, just to button up what Tracy was saying. Prior to that moment, most of the people who were commenting on markets in a big way and were able to get their views out to the public were coming from Wall Street or were traditional journalists, and you know, they were like the public relations firm would book the person on TV, the person would go on Bloomberg or on CNBC, and you know, they were like they had pedigree, and they also had guardrails. They had things that they wouldn't they weren't able to touch because they were connected to like a Fortune five hundred company. And then all of a sudden, this Cambrian explosion on the Internet. All of a sudden, you've got people amassing large followerships who have no pedigree, who have no publicist, and who have no guardrails and are able to say things that you know, other people would gasp at. But then that became the mainstream, and then all of a sudden, the media was picking up those voices rather than the traditional voices that they had been so accustomed to booking. And I think all three of us, you know, benefited from having been early and visible in that era and to this day, like a lot of the people that came out of the woodwork at that time are you know, now part of the establishment. So it was a really cool thing to be a part. I can count yeah, listen, I could count on on maybe two hands the people who are talking about finance on Twitter in March of two thousand and nine. When I started, it was a really small group of people because most professionals had compliance departments that just would not let them talk that way. Now of course, now, of course the compliance department is like when are you starting a podcast? So it's it's changed a lot. But we were there, the three of us, and you know, we can come up with a whole bunch of the names, but there aren't that many.

Yeah, And to be fair, so one of the advantages that I think bloggers and people who were on Twitter at the time had over traditional media was just the immediacy of that publishing platform because things were happening so fast right, like, within within a single day, you would have like ten history making stories all happening at once, and the newspapers and traditional media to some extent, just couldn't keep up, whereas if you're tweeting about it, if you're blogging about it in real time, you really had a competitive advantage. But Josh, I know you've written about this before, but for the benefit of our listeners, why did you get into blogging in the first place, Because again, people take it as a given now that you're on social media if you want to get ahead in your career, But back then it was a very new and to some extent, risky thing.

Yeah, And to be fair, so one of the advantages that I think bloggers and people who were on Twitter at the time had over traditional media was just the immediacy of that publishing platform because things were happening so fast right, like, within within a single day, you would have like ten history making stories all happening at once, and the newspapers and traditional media to some extent, just couldn't keep up, whereas if you're tweeting about it, if you're blogging about it in real time, you really had a competitive advantage. But Josh, I know you've written about this before, but for the benefit of our listeners, why did you get into blogging in the first place, Because again, people take it as a given now that you're on social media if you want to get ahead in your career, But back then it was a very new and to some extent, risky thing.

So I'm working at a third tier broker dealer in two thousand and eight, and like many other firms on Wall Street, they were seeing their revenue implode and you know, struggling and you know, raising money to try to stay in business, and you know, I go to the compliance officer and I'm like, Hey, I'm reading this blog by this guy barrio it Holtz, and I'm reading a bunch of blogs and they're doing a really great job describing what's happening. Every day. There's more news. It seemed like like every minute there was more news, and the people that were covering at best were not at the Wall Street Journal. They were independent bloggers like Tatas Visconta and Eddie Elfinbne and Barry and Eve Smith at Naked Capitalism and The Epicurean deal Maker and Med Faber. But these are like, these are people who they either work on Wall Street or they used to, or they talk to people that work on Wall Street, and they just there's so much more urgency to the way that they're describing this unfolding crisis. So I said, I said to my compliance officer, Hey, I know, like we have compliance restrictions and stuff, but if I stay within the lines of FINRA is at that time, I'm a retail broker. If I stay within the lines of what finra says I can and can't say, can I do a blog? And he looks at me. To his credit, he goes, I gotta be honest with you. I don't even know if this place is going to be around tomorrow. I don't give a shit, Like do whatever, do whatever you want to do. Just just just make sure you print a copy of everything that you're hitting publish on and bring it to me. And I'll sign it. And so I appreciate him to this day because he was he was dealing with much bigger issues. And you know, around that time, there were so few people that had been given the liberty to do that. I always tell people how lucky I am. There were so few people in my position who had been given the liberty to speak freely on the internet. I was one of them. And as a result, there was such a th for knowledge amongst the general public that I was able to build a really big following before you know, thousands of other people would start blogs. So being early and you know, having that advantage, I'll never not appreciate that I had the opportunity to do that.

So I'm working at a third tier broker dealer in two thousand and eight, and like many other firms on Wall Street, they were seeing their revenue implode and you know, struggling and you know, raising money to try to stay in business, and you know, I go to the compliance officer and I'm like, Hey, I'm reading this blog by this guy barrio it Holtz, and I'm reading a bunch of blogs and they're doing a really great job describing what's happening. Every day. There's more news. It seemed like like every minute there was more news, and the people that were covering at best were not at the Wall Street Journal. They were independent bloggers like Tatas Visconta and Eddie Elfinbne and Barry and Eve Smith at Naked Capitalism and The Epicurean deal Maker and Med Faber. But these are like, these are people who they either work on Wall Street or they used to, or they talk to people that work on Wall Street, and they just there's so much more urgency to the way that they're describing this unfolding crisis. So I said, I said to my compliance officer, Hey, I know, like we have compliance restrictions and stuff, but if I stay within the lines of FINRA is at that time, I'm a retail broker. If I stay within the lines of what finra says I can and can't say, can I do a blog? And he looks at me. To his credit, he goes, I gotta be honest with you. I don't even know if this place is going to be around tomorrow. I don't give a shit, Like do whatever, do whatever you want to do. Just just just make sure you print a copy of everything that you're hitting publish on and bring it to me. And I'll sign it. And so I appreciate him to this day because he was he was dealing with much bigger issues. And you know, around that time, there were so few people that had been given the liberty to do that. I always tell people how lucky I am. There were so few people in my position who had been given the liberty to speak freely on the internet. I was one of them. And as a result, there was such a th for knowledge amongst the general public that I was able to build a really big following before you know, thousands of other people would start blogs. So being early and you know, having that advantage, I'll never not appreciate that I had the opportunity to do that.

I have a personal question in two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, and your boss is saying, I don't even know if we're going to be around. So I was like living in an apartment in Brooklyn. I had two roommates at the time. It was sort of the whole thing was very interesting. You hit a career, you were at a brokerage. I believe you had a daughter at least by that point. What's that like with the anxiety of like you have like I didn't really have any responsibilities. I could sort of sit there eating my popcorn watching things employe, but you were in it, and presumably you know, you had like supportive what's that like supporting a family and being in the mix and being at a company where it looks like the world is ending.

I have a personal question in two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, and your boss is saying, I don't even know if we're going to be around. So I was like living in an apartment in Brooklyn. I had two roommates at the time. It was sort of the whole thing was very interesting. You hit a career, you were at a brokerage. I believe you had a daughter at least by that point. What's that like with the anxiety of like you have like I didn't really have any responsibilities. I could sort of sit there eating my popcorn watching things employe, but you were in it, and presumably you know, you had like supportive what's that like supporting a family and being in the mix and being at a company where it looks like the world is ending.

So I'm living in a rent control department on the upper east side Rupert Towers, which used to be the Rupert Brewery that sponsored the Yankees. I'm up on ninetieth and Third Avenue. I'm commuting down on the sixth train to forty second Street every day. My office is in the Helmsley Building, which is now called two thirty Park, but I'll always call it the Helmsley Building, And on the left side of the building is Barri Stearns. The right side of the building is JP Morgan. You know, a lot of my friends from college are bond salesman at Bear. My wife's best friend works at Lehman Brothers. She works at Golden Sacks. And I'm just surrounded by people that work at, you know, some of the biggest banks in the country, because those were the big employers in New York and so, you know, it was highly anxious we were in our i don't know, mid to late twenties, so everybody was going out and drinking a lot and just like commiserating. But I'll never forget the day bear Stearns closed because it was the same day as that as the Saint Patrick's Day parade. So like, out of more big curiosity, myself and all my fellow brokers walk around the corner from Helmsley over to the quote unquote the bear Stearns Building, which by the way, had just finished construction a year before. A lot of people don't know that. They spent ten years building it and then the firm went out of business deal later. So we walk around the corner. We see Aaron Burnett, who at that time is CNBC. She's sitting at a folding table doing live coverage from in front of the bear Stearns building, and behind her almost the entire Saint Patrick's Day Parade is coming off of Fifth Avenue where it ends, and like people are like publicly drunk, and there's green hats and bugles and you know they're blowing horns and there's horse and meanwhile you look behind that and you see white collar workers coming out of the front of the building with cardboard boxes with all their stuff in it. It's I want to find that footage because I don't I don't think people appreciate the extent to which it was just an absolute daily circus. And not long after, that same scene would be repeated in Times Square, where Lehman Brothers was headquartered. They literally took the sign off the front of the building almost symbolically, and you have thousands of people coming out of the front of the building with cardboard boxes. Some of them would get recalled the next day when Barkley's bought it. But that was those were the times that we lived in. And you know, I think one underappreciated aspect of this is it's only like five or six years removed from the nine to eleven era, and it just felt like trauma after trauma after trauma. So that was the New York in which I worked and lived and started to write. And about a month after I launched The Reformed Broker, the Madoff thing broke. So we went from so we went from bear Stearns to a year later Lehman Brothers aig the tarp vote blah blah blah blah blah, and just when you think it's over. The most trust shattering revelation of a Ponzi scheme in the history of finance breaks, and so I just had endless fodder to write about and maybe to answer your question. That helped serve as a distraction from all of the anxiety in which people working on Wall Street, you know, had to live.

So I'm living in a rent control department on the upper east side Rupert Towers, which used to be the Rupert Brewery that sponsored the Yankees. I'm up on ninetieth and Third Avenue. I'm commuting down on the sixth train to forty second Street every day. My office is in the Helmsley Building, which is now called two thirty Park, but I'll always call it the Helmsley Building, And on the left side of the building is Barri Stearns. The right side of the building is JP Morgan. You know, a lot of my friends from college are bond salesman at Bear. My wife's best friend works at Lehman Brothers. She works at Golden Sacks. And I'm just surrounded by people that work at, you know, some of the biggest banks in the country, because those were the big employers in New York and so, you know, it was highly anxious we were in our i don't know, mid to late twenties, so everybody was going out and drinking a lot and just like commiserating. But I'll never forget the day bear Stearns closed because it was the same day as that as the Saint Patrick's Day parade. So like, out of more big curiosity, myself and all my fellow brokers walk around the corner from Helmsley over to the quote unquote the bear Stearns Building, which by the way, had just finished construction a year before. A lot of people don't know that. They spent ten years building it and then the firm went out of business deal later. So we walk around the corner. We see Aaron Burnett, who at that time is CNBC. She's sitting at a folding table doing live coverage from in front of the bear Stearns building, and behind her almost the entire Saint Patrick's Day Parade is coming off of Fifth Avenue where it ends, and like people are like publicly drunk, and there's green hats and bugles and you know they're blowing horns and there's horse and meanwhile you look behind that and you see white collar workers coming out of the front of the building with cardboard boxes with all their stuff in it. It's I want to find that footage because I don't I don't think people appreciate the extent to which it was just an absolute daily circus. And not long after, that same scene would be repeated in Times Square, where Lehman Brothers was headquartered. They literally took the sign off the front of the building almost symbolically, and you have thousands of people coming out of the front of the building with cardboard boxes. Some of them would get recalled the next day when Barkley's bought it. But that was those were the times that we lived in. And you know, I think one underappreciated aspect of this is it's only like five or six years removed from the nine to eleven era, and it just felt like trauma after trauma after trauma. So that was the New York in which I worked and lived and started to write. And about a month after I launched The Reformed Broker, the Madoff thing broke. So we went from so we went from bear Stearns to a year later Lehman Brothers aig the tarp vote blah blah blah blah blah, and just when you think it's over. The most trust shattering revelation of a Ponzi scheme in the history of finance breaks, and so I just had endless fodder to write about and maybe to answer your question. That helped serve as a distraction from all of the anxiety in which people working on Wall Street, you know, had to live.

I remember when the Madoff thing broke, I think it was later in two thousand and eight, was it?

I remember when the Madoff thing broke, I think it was later in two thousand and eight, was it?

Yeah?

Yeah?

And I remember the headline December Yeah, and the headline on the ft Alphaville post, the very first post on the topic is one of my all time favorites.

And I remember the headline December Yeah, and the headline on the ft Alphaville post, the very first post on the topic is one of my all time favorites.

It wasn't by me.

It wasn't by me.

I think it was by our founder Paul Murphy, but it was he made off with it, which was at the time a very original pun and sticks in it became less original as the months went on and the story went on. Okay, what happened? So what happened to the brokerage that you were working at? And like, how did you manage the career transition away from blogging and into I mean, you basically run an investment and a media empire at this point, So how did that happen?

I think it was by our founder Paul Murphy, but it was he made off with it, which was at the time a very original pun and sticks in it became less original as the months went on and the story went on. Okay, what happened? So what happened to the brokerage that you were working at? And like, how did you manage the career transition away from blogging and into I mean, you basically run an investment and a media empire at this point, So how did that happen?

All? Right? So I'm still a broker, but I'm also a co branch manager. And it's interesting retail investors didn't at least the type of investor. We weren't really dealing with investors. We were dealing with gamblers, people that were trading stocks. And around that same time you had the introduction of the two x and then the three X in xctfs. So the ticker symbols are now infamous. You had the TNA and the TZA. One of those was triple long, the Russell two thousand, the other was triple short. You had the FAS and the FAZ. Those were the triple long and triple short financial sector in the XCTF. And that's what the retail brokers pivoted to. They were no longer pitching stocks because everything looked uninvestable. I mean, you literally had a fifty seven percent peak to trough decline in the S and P. And by the way, again, that same thing had happened from the dot com bubble through NRON world Com nine to eleven. So like after ten years of that kind of volatility, people were just like, you know what, I'm going to invest in volatility, And so that's what the brokers, the retail brokers pivoted to I'm a co branch manager. I have to send letters to the clients where they disclaim, yes, I want to be trading the three x long or short Russell two thousand. Like the clients would sign the letters and that would give the brokers carte blanche to just you know's all right, let's play. We're in the game. You would have these are ETFs that are trading I don't know, hundreds of millions of dollars maybe billions of dollars in in volume, and you could be down twenty percent in the morning and then up twenty percent in the afternoon. It was just the wild West. And I looked around and I said, what the hell am I doing this for? Like, no one is being helped by this activity, even the brokers. They were barely making money. So it was just like it was an epiphany that I had up until then spent ten years doing retail brokerage, and nobody was better off for it, not me, not my clients, not the firm I worked for. So I started to get really curious about, well, what are what are normal people doing? And like what should I be doing to actually help people in this profession? And it became really obvious that I was on the wrong side of the boat. So the brokerage side, the Series seven side, where you're selling investments, versus the investment advisor side, where you're giving advice and the investing is incidental to the advice, and you're not selling products, you're building portfolios and you're helping people really solve the puzzle of how are they going to retire, how are they going to pay for their kids college, etc. So I knew that I was on the wrong side within the profession, and in those days, most people were. There were more people that were registered representatives or Series seven license brokers than there were true financial advisors. And so my decision, guys was I'm going to be a reformed broker and I'm going to go over to the investment advisor side. But then the catch was, well, how do you do that? How do you leave? How do you leave the brokerage side and go over to the advice side? And I didn't know. So it wasn't until twenty ten that I met Barry, who is, you know, at that time my idol. Now he's my partner, but I when I met him, I sat with him and I said, all right, here's my problem, or he said here's I didn't say anything first, Barry did like an hour so I want to remind people. And of course Barry is a host of a show on Bloomberg and so okay. So Barry says, here's my problem. I have the number one best selling book in the country about the financial crisis. It's called Bailout Nation, and I think it proceeded to big to fail and all the rest. So he's all right, at the number one book in the country on the financial crisis. I actually predicted the crisis on my blog. I called it in real time. I predicted the market crash, and I had my phone is ringing off the hook because I also predicted the bottom. So he in the New York Times three days before the market bottomed, he said, I don't know if there's a thousand more points down from here, but I think you buy them. And literally three days later, the market bottom. So the phones are ringing off the hook at the RIA that he works at. And he's not a financial advisor, he's a strategist. He doesn't talk to clients, so he's like, my problem is the phones are bringing off the hook the emails are pouring in. People are like, Barry, just take my money, take my money, take my money. I don't do that. So I don't know how to help these people. I said, Oh, okay, I have the opposite problem. I'm ready to help people. Nobody's calling me. I don't know. I don't know where to get my next client from. So we teamed up and it was like lightning in a bottle. Like I'm telling you guys, we had like hundreds of people a month just call the firm. I would start talking about like how we're going to invest their money, and they'd be like, just shut up, here's my Social Security number, Like open me an account, and I'm leaving Merrill Lynch, I'm leaving, I'm leaving Leman, I'm leaving this. From leaving that firm, I get my money out of there, and I want to work with Barry. So my transition was like this insane rollercoaster of going from like nobody wants to talk to me, and then the next day it's like, oh my god, Josh, how do I get you guys money? And that's how it started. And you know, we've been we've been running ever since.

All? Right? So I'm still a broker, but I'm also a co branch manager. And it's interesting retail investors didn't at least the type of investor. We weren't really dealing with investors. We were dealing with gamblers, people that were trading stocks. And around that same time you had the introduction of the two x and then the three X in xctfs. So the ticker symbols are now infamous. You had the TNA and the TZA. One of those was triple long, the Russell two thousand, the other was triple short. You had the FAS and the FAZ. Those were the triple long and triple short financial sector in the XCTF. And that's what the retail brokers pivoted to. They were no longer pitching stocks because everything looked uninvestable. I mean, you literally had a fifty seven percent peak to trough decline in the S and P. And by the way, again, that same thing had happened from the dot com bubble through NRON world Com nine to eleven. So like after ten years of that kind of volatility, people were just like, you know what, I'm going to invest in volatility, And so that's what the brokers, the retail brokers pivoted to I'm a co branch manager. I have to send letters to the clients where they disclaim, yes, I want to be trading the three x long or short Russell two thousand. Like the clients would sign the letters and that would give the brokers carte blanche to just you know's all right, let's play. We're in the game. You would have these are ETFs that are trading I don't know, hundreds of millions of dollars maybe billions of dollars in in volume, and you could be down twenty percent in the morning and then up twenty percent in the afternoon. It was just the wild West. And I looked around and I said, what the hell am I doing this for? Like, no one is being helped by this activity, even the brokers. They were barely making money. So it was just like it was an epiphany that I had up until then spent ten years doing retail brokerage, and nobody was better off for it, not me, not my clients, not the firm I worked for. So I started to get really curious about, well, what are what are normal people doing? And like what should I be doing to actually help people in this profession? And it became really obvious that I was on the wrong side of the boat. So the brokerage side, the Series seven side, where you're selling investments, versus the investment advisor side, where you're giving advice and the investing is incidental to the advice, and you're not selling products, you're building portfolios and you're helping people really solve the puzzle of how are they going to retire, how are they going to pay for their kids college, etc. So I knew that I was on the wrong side within the profession, and in those days, most people were. There were more people that were registered representatives or Series seven license brokers than there were true financial advisors. And so my decision, guys was I'm going to be a reformed broker and I'm going to go over to the investment advisor side. But then the catch was, well, how do you do that? How do you leave? How do you leave the brokerage side and go over to the advice side? And I didn't know. So it wasn't until twenty ten that I met Barry, who is, you know, at that time my idol. Now he's my partner, but I when I met him, I sat with him and I said, all right, here's my problem, or he said here's I didn't say anything first, Barry did like an hour so I want to remind people. And of course Barry is a host of a show on Bloomberg and so okay. So Barry says, here's my problem. I have the number one best selling book in the country about the financial crisis. It's called Bailout Nation, and I think it proceeded to big to fail and all the rest. So he's all right, at the number one book in the country on the financial crisis. I actually predicted the crisis on my blog. I called it in real time. I predicted the market crash, and I had my phone is ringing off the hook because I also predicted the bottom. So he in the New York Times three days before the market bottomed, he said, I don't know if there's a thousand more points down from here, but I think you buy them. And literally three days later, the market bottom. So the phones are ringing off the hook at the RIA that he works at. And he's not a financial advisor, he's a strategist. He doesn't talk to clients, so he's like, my problem is the phones are bringing off the hook the emails are pouring in. People are like, Barry, just take my money, take my money, take my money. I don't do that. So I don't know how to help these people. I said, Oh, okay, I have the opposite problem. I'm ready to help people. Nobody's calling me. I don't know. I don't know where to get my next client from. So we teamed up and it was like lightning in a bottle. Like I'm telling you guys, we had like hundreds of people a month just call the firm. I would start talking about like how we're going to invest their money, and they'd be like, just shut up, here's my Social Security number, Like open me an account, and I'm leaving Merrill Lynch, I'm leaving, I'm leaving Leman, I'm leaving this. From leaving that firm, I get my money out of there, and I want to work with Barry. So my transition was like this insane rollercoaster of going from like nobody wants to talk to me, and then the next day it's like, oh my god, Josh, how do I get you guys money? And that's how it started. And you know, we've been we've been running ever since.

Uh when so there's a lot of questions that I have a different past week could go down. So you start the advisory with Barry, and now it's huge and you have all advisors all over the country, so multiple offices, et cetera. And we could talk about that more on the media side, So you had been doing the blogging, you know, I think both of us, like I started blogging in like two thousand and six or whatever. You know, it was just to write and I didn't think anything would really come of that aspect other than like, you know, personal notebook, et cetera. When did it seem like the media side of your career was also getting could be like a real thing that like is not just like a notebook or whatever, but something that like, oh there's like this can grow and this can grow your profile. And obviously now you're on CNBC and you have a conference biz and by the way, if you're listening to this, I believe it is going to be released the day that we're all out at your future Proof conference. But when did you sort of realize that there's something big happening on the media side that could be more than just a blog that you like, you know, tell people what's going on?

Uh when so there's a lot of questions that I have a different past week could go down. So you start the advisory with Barry, and now it's huge and you have all advisors all over the country, so multiple offices, et cetera. And we could talk about that more on the media side, So you had been doing the blogging, you know, I think both of us, like I started blogging in like two thousand and six or whatever. You know, it was just to write and I didn't think anything would really come of that aspect other than like, you know, personal notebook, et cetera. When did it seem like the media side of your career was also getting could be like a real thing that like is not just like a notebook or whatever, but something that like, oh there's like this can grow and this can grow your profile. And obviously now you're on CNBC and you have a conference biz and by the way, if you're listening to this, I believe it is going to be released the day that we're all out at your future Proof conference. But when did you sort of realize that there's something big happening on the media side that could be more than just a blog that you like, you know, tell people what's going on?

So all right, so I'm writing every day, yeah, and I'm writing every day. Yeah, I'm a man on fire and I am and I don't. So. I think the charm of what I was doing then is that I never presented myself as like I'm like this, you know, billionaire hedge fund manager, or I'm a cheap strategist at you know, Goldman Sachs, you know, caliber market commentator. I never I can't help it. I was always ever just me. And so I was writing from the perspective of a grunt in the trenches on Wall Street, suffering through all the ups and downs like everyone else, and talking about what it was like to talk to clients, talking about what it was like to navigate, you know, all of the various cross currents that were happening, but from a street level. And I think the readership appreciated that. And what ended up happening was it became popular enough that professionals in the financial media started like people were sending them links, and then they started to share those links in their editorial meetings. And the first people that put me on TV were CNN Money, my friend Caleb Silver. I was like, in with this group of other financial bloggers with Howard Lindzen and who's a venture capitalist at the time, and you know, a whole bunch of people. And CNN is starting to do more financial content because the whole country is like wrapped with what's going on. So CNN Money really was my first shot at being able to take my writing and turn it into like television and commentary. I was also getting a lot of calls from the Wall Street Journal. They were linking to me every day, and they were like, because they didn't set that time. And Tracy will attest to this, Joe, you were writing at cluster Stock, which became exciting, but like I never will. But the large, the large media firms, the large media firms were not staffed up to do hourly commentary on every twist and turn in the market. So instead of attempting to do that with traditional journalists, and they had amazing journalists, they pivoted to this idea that all right, we can't cover everything, but we'll do a link fest every day and we'll tell the readers what where else they can go. So they were serving their purpose. Like the Wall Street Journal didn't have at that time five people who could write markets blogs. So we became the ben fish areas of that vacuum, and all of a sudden I start getting called from the Wall Street Journal. They're doing video. Kelly Evans is like, I don't know, twenty three years old, and she is like their lead markets, you know, daily blogger, and she's doing video, and she's like, hey, I don't know if they're going to allow me to do this, but I asked them if I could bring you on and let's see what happens. So all of a sudden, I start getting calls from Bloomberg and then of course, like eventually CNBC calls and they're like, here's the deal. We're talking about your blog posts every morning. Are you normal? Like we put you on because at that time, bloggers were a little bit scary, and there were some scary guys you know, on Twitter and writing about finance that ended up becoming, you know, obviously these people in maniacs. So I'm like, no, I'm normal. I'm working in the industry, I'm Series sixty five, I'm registered, I'm overseen by the SEC. I have a wife and kids. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna come on the air and embarrass anyone. So I guess like I had this progression, uh, and I'd done enough that people were like, all right, this guy's good. And so that's That's really how like the media thing, the origin of the media thing happened. It it was it was Look, there was a show you guys probably remember. It was a show that Fox Business used to tape from the lobby the bar pulling Bear at the Waldorf Historia.

So all right, so I'm writing every day, yeah, and I'm writing every day. Yeah, I'm a man on fire and I am and I don't. So. I think the charm of what I was doing then is that I never presented myself as like I'm like this, you know, billionaire hedge fund manager, or I'm a cheap strategist at you know, Goldman Sachs, you know, caliber market commentator. I never I can't help it. I was always ever just me. And so I was writing from the perspective of a grunt in the trenches on Wall Street, suffering through all the ups and downs like everyone else, and talking about what it was like to talk to clients, talking about what it was like to navigate, you know, all of the various cross currents that were happening, but from a street level. And I think the readership appreciated that. And what ended up happening was it became popular enough that professionals in the financial media started like people were sending them links, and then they started to share those links in their editorial meetings. And the first people that put me on TV were CNN Money, my friend Caleb Silver. I was like, in with this group of other financial bloggers with Howard Lindzen and who's a venture capitalist at the time, and you know, a whole bunch of people. And CNN is starting to do more financial content because the whole country is like wrapped with what's going on. So CNN Money really was my first shot at being able to take my writing and turn it into like television and commentary. I was also getting a lot of calls from the Wall Street Journal. They were linking to me every day, and they were like, because they didn't set that time. And Tracy will attest to this, Joe, you were writing at cluster Stock, which became exciting, but like I never will. But the large, the large media firms, the large media firms were not staffed up to do hourly commentary on every twist and turn in the market. So instead of attempting to do that with traditional journalists, and they had amazing journalists, they pivoted to this idea that all right, we can't cover everything, but we'll do a link fest every day and we'll tell the readers what where else they can go. So they were serving their purpose. Like the Wall Street Journal didn't have at that time five people who could write markets blogs. So we became the ben fish areas of that vacuum, and all of a sudden I start getting called from the Wall Street Journal. They're doing video. Kelly Evans is like, I don't know, twenty three years old, and she is like their lead markets, you know, daily blogger, and she's doing video, and she's like, hey, I don't know if they're going to allow me to do this, but I asked them if I could bring you on and let's see what happens. So all of a sudden, I start getting calls from Bloomberg and then of course, like eventually CNBC calls and they're like, here's the deal. We're talking about your blog posts every morning. Are you normal? Like we put you on because at that time, bloggers were a little bit scary, and there were some scary guys you know, on Twitter and writing about finance that ended up becoming, you know, obviously these people in maniacs. So I'm like, no, I'm normal. I'm working in the industry, I'm Series sixty five, I'm registered, I'm overseen by the SEC. I have a wife and kids. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna come on the air and embarrass anyone. So I guess like I had this progression, uh, and I'd done enough that people were like, all right, this guy's good. And so that's That's really how like the media thing, the origin of the media thing happened. It it was it was Look, there was a show you guys probably remember. It was a show that Fox Business used to tape from the lobby the bar pulling Bear at the Waldorf Historia.

Remember that, Yeah, I remember, all right.

Remember that, Yeah, I remember, all right.

So it's it's Cody Willard and Eric Bolling and Eric Bolling and they're the hosts and they every day, this is five days a week. I can't even believe this went on. This is seven, this is eight and nine every day in the bar at the Waldorf Astoria. They set up a TV studio. There are regular people eating steaks and drinking in the background, and they did this like happy hour show. So they were invited me to come down and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna be on Fox Business. And then I find out they're like, no, no, no, you're not going to be on. You're a blogger. We just want you to sit on set and do a blog post about the show. And I'm like, well, I'm like, oh, I'll show you.

So it's it's Cody Willard and Eric Bolling and Eric Bolling and they're the hosts and they every day, this is five days a week. I can't even believe this went on. This is seven, this is eight and nine every day in the bar at the Waldorf Astoria. They set up a TV studio. There are regular people eating steaks and drinking in the background, and they did this like happy hour show. So they were invited me to come down and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna be on Fox Business. And then I find out they're like, no, no, no, you're not going to be on. You're a blogger. We just want you to sit on set and do a blog post about the show. And I'm like, well, I'm like, oh, I'll show you.

It's a mistake.

It's a mistake.

That's just so like there's something about that that's like so perfect. Like two thousand and nine, traditional media trying to figure got to do something.

That's just so like there's something about that that's like so perfect. Like two thousand and nine, traditional media trying to figure got to do something.

But this is exactly it. So I I failed the normality test, but I think it like it speaks to the uncertainty of the moment and how traditional media was sort of grappling with this new cast of characters, which is like when I was at the FT at the time, there was a sense internally that the people on ft Alphaville, who were writing good stuff and doing good analysis, should have some sort of video format. And then we I remember we shot like an initial version of what the video could be, and the feedback from our video team came back that we were so weird and off putting on camera that we should be played by puppets.

But this is exactly it. So I I failed the normality test, but I think it like it speaks to the uncertainty of the moment and how traditional media was sort of grappling with this new cast of characters, which is like when I was at the FT at the time, there was a sense internally that the people on ft Alphaville, who were writing good stuff and doing good analysis, should have some sort of video format. And then we I remember we shot like an initial version of what the video could be, and the feedback from our video team came back that we were so weird and off putting on camera that we should be played by puppets.

That was an actual suggestion.

That was an actual suggestion.

It's funny because I think like if I like there was this view that like the bloggers were like these weird like sort of like caged wild animals, and like I remember going to a conference like two thousand and seven, it was a tech conference, it was a little bit before and they had like this like special like blogger bullpen, like they separated us from the other journalists. But there was like but like they get a little space because we know they're cool and they're doing something, and so they get their own seats. But they're like different and they have to be sort of segregated from the other people there.

It's funny because I think like if I like there was this view that like the bloggers were like these weird like sort of like caged wild animals, and like I remember going to a conference like two thousand and seven, it was a tech conference, it was a little bit before and they had like this like special like blogger bullpen, like they separated us from the other journalists. But there was like but like they get a little space because we know they're cool and they're doing something, and so they get their own seats. But they're like different and they have to be sort of segregated from the other people there.

That was a weird There was There was a there was a guy on the air named Dennis Neil and he would pick fights with bloggers from the air. So he was I don't know what time he was. He was on CNBC. I don't know what time his show was or whatever, but he had this recurring I'm not even kidding, he had a recurring segment called blog you, and he would this is all true, you could look this up. He would he he would pick a different blogger who was like prominent on Twitter each time they did the segment and like and like go off on this person. And then they started booking the bloggers onto his show for like a live debate. It was guys, it was wild and I forget the guy's name. One guy was just a complete lunatic and on the air just went nuts on Dennis Neil. I don't I think a month later, Dennis Neil was off the air, and the bloggers won. The bloggers won, because yeah, so by blog you by twenty ten, every network Bloomberg, Fox, Business, CNBC, CNN, anyone covering the market. If you would just turn on the TV and watch for an hour, you would see somebody that started off as a blogger. So I think the freaks one and and you know again like by by now it's it's fifteen years later, by now we're the establishment. But in that time there were Tracy. You're absolutely right, there was like a red line these are these are journalists or TV people and these are blog freaks. And you know, of course that's that's it's funny now, but like that's that's how it was, and crossing over. So Barry had crossed over. Barry was on Cudlow like three nights a week at the at the peak of the crisis, Cudlow had an amazing show at seven I think it was at seven o'clock on CNBC every night, and it was all chief strategists and economists and some politicians, and Barry was on there almost every night, and he was a regular and he was like a blueprint of how you can go from being a blogger to being a mainstream commentator.

That was a weird There was There was a there was a guy on the air named Dennis Neil and he would pick fights with bloggers from the air. So he was I don't know what time he was. He was on CNBC. I don't know what time his show was or whatever, but he had this recurring I'm not even kidding, he had a recurring segment called blog you, and he would this is all true, you could look this up. He would he he would pick a different blogger who was like prominent on Twitter each time they did the segment and like and like go off on this person. And then they started booking the bloggers onto his show for like a live debate. It was guys, it was wild and I forget the guy's name. One guy was just a complete lunatic and on the air just went nuts on Dennis Neil. I don't I think a month later, Dennis Neil was off the air, and the bloggers won. The bloggers won, because yeah, so by blog you by twenty ten, every network Bloomberg, Fox, Business, CNBC, CNN, anyone covering the market. If you would just turn on the TV and watch for an hour, you would see somebody that started off as a blogger. So I think the freaks one and and you know again like by by now it's it's fifteen years later, by now we're the establishment. But in that time there were Tracy. You're absolutely right, there was like a red line these are these are journalists or TV people and these are blog freaks. And you know, of course that's that's it's funny now, but like that's that's how it was, and crossing over. So Barry had crossed over. Barry was on Cudlow like three nights a week at the at the peak of the crisis, Cudlow had an amazing show at seven I think it was at seven o'clock on CNBC every night, and it was all chief strategists and economists and some politicians, and Barry was on there almost every night, and he was a regular and he was like a blueprint of how you can go from being a blogger to being a mainstream commentator.

What are the pros and cons of running you know, the investment firm, the advisory alongside the media. So, you know, I imagine you get there, there's promotional opportunities, you get your thoughts out there and some of your ideas. But on the other hand, it must take some time. And also I can imagine that you know, if you put your thoughts out there, some of those inevitably are going to be mistakes that people can like bring up and criticize. So I'm just wondering how you think about like the upsides and the downsides of doing those two things.

What are the pros and cons of running you know, the investment firm, the advisory alongside the media. So, you know, I imagine you get there, there's promotional opportunities, you get your thoughts out there and some of your ideas. But on the other hand, it must take some time. And also I can imagine that you know, if you put your thoughts out there, some of those inevitably are going to be mistakes that people can like bring up and criticize. So I'm just wondering how you think about like the upsides and the downsides of doing those two things.

You have to decide that you are willing to be publicly wrong and that you are going to have the humility that when you're wrong, you're going to turn that into content. And some of the most popular blog posts of that era not just me, everybody, Here's why I got blank wrong. Now, not everybody went that way. There are some people that doubled down, tripled down, quadrupled down on what they were wrong about and never let it go. There are some people that are like macroeconomic geniuses, and they're still calling for the double dip recession from twenty eleven that never happened. It's coming any day now. But I think I think the bet that you had to make was that by being humble and by owning your mistakes and maybe even turning them into an entertaining way to learn something, that the audience would come along with you for the ride. And a lot of us did that. This is not something I came up with on my own. I watched people that I respect own their errors, and you know, people like Doug cass who was writing at the street dot com. This guy's buying a stock in the morning and writing a column about how he's bullish, and then telling it in the afternoon and the next day he's shorting it. So he had like a lot of flexibility in how he thought. So I looked at that and I said, all right, So Doug has a lot of respect from people all over the street, and he's saying, I bought this thing, I'm wrong, it's down, I'm gonna sell now. I don't personally believe in invest in that way. I don't think that people should be frantically switching back and forth bull bear, bull bear, But it showed me that you can be open and honest with your audience and they will respect you more for it, rather than hiding there was as the first show of it's kind on on CNBC was Fast Money and one of the original cast members it doesn't matter who, and it's so long ago, one of the original cast members. I remember the producer telling me if he was wrong about a stock on like Tuesday night, he wouldn't show up on Wednesday. Like, I'm not coming, sorry, I can't make the show tonight. So like you could do you could? I do that for a few months, but it's gonna wear really thin with the audience. So I think having the humility and trying to turn the things you're wrong about into teachable moments that's been really powerful, and the people that have done that have done very well as a result.

You have to decide that you are willing to be publicly wrong and that you are going to have the humility that when you're wrong, you're going to turn that into content. And some of the most popular blog posts of that era not just me, everybody, Here's why I got blank wrong. Now, not everybody went that way. There are some people that doubled down, tripled down, quadrupled down on what they were wrong about and never let it go. There are some people that are like macroeconomic geniuses, and they're still calling for the double dip recession from twenty eleven that never happened. It's coming any day now. But I think I think the bet that you had to make was that by being humble and by owning your mistakes and maybe even turning them into an entertaining way to learn something, that the audience would come along with you for the ride. And a lot of us did that. This is not something I came up with on my own. I watched people that I respect own their errors, and you know, people like Doug cass who was writing at the street dot com. This guy's buying a stock in the morning and writing a column about how he's bullish, and then telling it in the afternoon and the next day he's shorting it. So he had like a lot of flexibility in how he thought. So I looked at that and I said, all right, So Doug has a lot of respect from people all over the street, and he's saying, I bought this thing, I'm wrong, it's down, I'm gonna sell now. I don't personally believe in invest in that way. I don't think that people should be frantically switching back and forth bull bear, bull bear, But it showed me that you can be open and honest with your audience and they will respect you more for it, rather than hiding there was as the first show of it's kind on on CNBC was Fast Money and one of the original cast members it doesn't matter who, and it's so long ago, one of the original cast members. I remember the producer telling me if he was wrong about a stock on like Tuesday night, he wouldn't show up on Wednesday. Like, I'm not coming, sorry, I can't make the show tonight. So like you could do you could? I do that for a few months, but it's gonna wear really thin with the audience. So I think having the humility and trying to turn the things you're wrong about into teachable moments that's been really powerful, and the people that have done that have done very well as a result.

We you know, like we could turn that. We could just talk forever about this and about that era because we're barely scratching their service. No, I just appreciate you so much reminding me of some of the hilarious things that we're going on. I had totally forgotten about that show in the bar, but I remember it the blog use segment.

We you know, like we could turn that. We could just talk forever about this and about that era because we're barely scratching their service. No, I just appreciate you so much reminding me of some of the hilarious things that we're going on. I had totally forgotten about that show in the bar, but I remember it the blog use segment.

I remember it.

I remember it.

This is like great stuff and again memory Lane stuff. I'm all about it. There are so many other things if we zoom ahead, you know, right now twenty twenty four, things have changed, you know, like finance Twitter isn't what it was, Blogging is different. But things are always evolving, and I like to you know, I get anxious about like, oh am, I like gonna get stuck in a current way of doing things, and then the way people consume financial and from will change. Well, I'd be able to pivot on time. I like to think I've done an okay of sort of like figuring out when to try new things and drop old formats. Do you get anxious about that yourself? The fact that you know so many different new platforms and like trying to you know, worry about getting stuck or like what do you think is happening right now in finance media?

This is like great stuff and again memory Lane stuff. I'm all about it. There are so many other things if we zoom ahead, you know, right now twenty twenty four, things have changed, you know, like finance Twitter isn't what it was, Blogging is different. But things are always evolving, and I like to you know, I get anxious about like, oh am, I like gonna get stuck in a current way of doing things, and then the way people consume financial and from will change. Well, I'd be able to pivot on time. I like to think I've done an okay of sort of like figuring out when to try new things and drop old formats. Do you get anxious about that yourself? The fact that you know so many different new platforms and like trying to you know, worry about getting stuck or like what do you think is happening right now in finance media?

So I think I was actually I was talking to I was talking to Michael Batnic about this yesterday, so it's fresh in my mind. I think in that era and for about ten years, yeah, Twitter was the most essential platform for making sure that if you took the time to write something and put your thoughts out there and do the research, that is required when you're writing, like if you really put effort into a piece of content, Twitter was the way that you could make sure there would be distribution. Yeah. Less so Facebook because the pros aren't really spending their days on there and it's not urgent enough, it doesn't move fast enough. But tweet deck was the way that you distributed content, and it was extremely powerful because if what you did was good, or if people hated it or whatever, if it struck any kind of chord, the amplification in the form of retweets was more powerful than the Wall Street Journal dot Com linking to you, because it was like everybody was resharing the best four or five things that had been written that day. So this guy, Tatus Wisconsa, he works with us now, he's our director of investor Education. He had a blog called Abnormal Returns and it was ground zero for daily financial commentation.

So I think I was actually I was talking to I was talking to Michael Batnic about this yesterday, so it's fresh in my mind. I think in that era and for about ten years, yeah, Twitter was the most essential platform for making sure that if you took the time to write something and put your thoughts out there and do the research, that is required when you're writing, like if you really put effort into a piece of content, Twitter was the way that you could make sure there would be distribution. Yeah. Less so Facebook because the pros aren't really spending their days on there and it's not urgent enough, it doesn't move fast enough. But tweet deck was the way that you distributed content, and it was extremely powerful because if what you did was good, or if people hated it or whatever, if it struck any kind of chord, the amplification in the form of retweets was more powerful than the Wall Street Journal dot Com linking to you, because it was like everybody was resharing the best four or five things that had been written that day. So this guy, Tatus Wisconsa, he works with us now, he's our director of investor Education. He had a blog called Abnormal Returns and it was ground zero for daily financial commentation.

That was actually like the first thing you would look at when you got into the office in the morning.

That was actually like the first thing you would look at when you got into the office in the morning.

I remember now Tatus is the librarian of finance Twitter. If somebody wrote something, he knew it. He read everyone, He read everything, and he curated the best ten to fifteen things that had been written each day. He did it five days a week, did it for more than ten years. He's still doing it. And if you made Tatus's site, you won. Like that means what you wrote that day was legit. That would then be complimented by what would happen on Twitter because everyone was reading abnormal returns. And there were other notable link fests each day. Deal Breaker had one that Best Levin and Matt Levigne worked on, and there were a few others. But like that was basically like the mixtape that you know, like the rappers all wanted to get on the DJ Clu mixtape, which would then be sold on the on Canal Street in Chinatown, and that's how DJs from around the country would know that something is hot. This was very similar, and then Twitter would just amplify it and really enable something to go viral. That all changed. The first thing that happened is the Wall Street Journal and CNBC dot Com and even and Yahoo Finance, the distribution channels, they started hiring their own bloggers and they stopped linking out, so now they never link out. But I remember that taking place, and then it's all of a sudden, like all right, the mainstream media is no longer going to link out, but you still had to have normal returns, and you still had Twitter. What's changed in the last few years is that Twitter is no longer a worthwhile distribution platform. Things go viral if they are really negative or violent or racist, or somebody just being piled on for an opinion. That's not the climate that it used to be when people were trying to share information and debate topics. Now they debate personalities. They hate Chamoth or they hate Mark Cuban today and then the next day, like you know, so somebody got filmed stumbling out of a bar drunk. It's not a platform anymore where you could write something amazing and anyone's going to pay attention to it. And finance Twitter, finance Twitter is a vertical is really small within the context of Twitter. He's talked to this guy, Aard Podnos, who was quote unquote in charge of finance Twitter for Twitter. It was it was one guy overseeing what all of us were doing. It was not like sports or celebrity.

I remember now Tatus is the librarian of finance Twitter. If somebody wrote something, he knew it. He read everyone, He read everything, and he curated the best ten to fifteen things that had been written each day. He did it five days a week, did it for more than ten years. He's still doing it. And if you made Tatus's site, you won. Like that means what you wrote that day was legit. That would then be complimented by what would happen on Twitter because everyone was reading abnormal returns. And there were other notable link fests each day. Deal Breaker had one that Best Levin and Matt Levigne worked on, and there were a few others. But like that was basically like the mixtape that you know, like the rappers all wanted to get on the DJ Clu mixtape, which would then be sold on the on Canal Street in Chinatown, and that's how DJs from around the country would know that something is hot. This was very similar, and then Twitter would just amplify it and really enable something to go viral. That all changed. The first thing that happened is the Wall Street Journal and CNBC dot Com and even and Yahoo Finance, the distribution channels, they started hiring their own bloggers and they stopped linking out, so now they never link out. But I remember that taking place, and then it's all of a sudden, like all right, the mainstream media is no longer going to link out, but you still had to have normal returns, and you still had Twitter. What's changed in the last few years is that Twitter is no longer a worthwhile distribution platform. Things go viral if they are really negative or violent or racist, or somebody just being piled on for an opinion. That's not the climate that it used to be when people were trying to share information and debate topics. Now they debate personalities. They hate Chamoth or they hate Mark Cuban today and then the next day, like you know, so somebody got filmed stumbling out of a bar drunk. It's not a platform anymore where you could write something amazing and anyone's going to pay attention to it. And finance Twitter, finance Twitter is a vertical is really small within the context of Twitter. He's talked to this guy, Aard Podnos, who was quote unquote in charge of finance Twitter for Twitter. It was it was one guy overseeing what all of us were doing. It was not like sports or celebrity.

Call what does that mean? He was in charge.

Call what does that mean? He was in charge.

I think that it's awesome. One of my favorite people Twitter had him monitor finance Twitter. So anything that had a ticker or you know, all the Wall Street people that were now tweeting. His job was to oversee what people were saying and try to make it helpful for the rest of Twitter users to find.

I think that it's awesome. One of my favorite people Twitter had him monitor finance Twitter. So anything that had a ticker or you know, all the Wall Street people that were now tweeting. His job was to oversee what people were saying and try to make it helpful for the rest of Twitter users to find.

Yeah, like all the cash tags and all the things that sort of formalize it. I don't know.

Yeah, like all the cash tags and all the things that sort of formalize it. I don't know.

So it's over. So it's over, and it's okay. Like things things aren't meant to less forever, Like Saturday Night Live on the air for fifty years is an anomaly. Most things don't go on for more than three or four years. So I think you guys correct me if I'm wrong. I think peak finance Twitter is let's say, twenty ten to twenty twenty. And then in twenty twenty things really broke down and it became more of like a platform for venting rage and me too, and you know, posting disturbing video clips, and it just became less about communities. And that's around the time that I think it lost its relevance for finance.

So it's over. So it's over, and it's okay. Like things things aren't meant to less forever, Like Saturday Night Live on the air for fifty years is an anomaly. Most things don't go on for more than three or four years. So I think you guys correct me if I'm wrong. I think peak finance Twitter is let's say, twenty ten to twenty twenty. And then in twenty twenty things really broke down and it became more of like a platform for venting rage and me too, and you know, posting disturbing video clips, and it just became less about communities. And that's around the time that I think it lost its relevance for finance.

Joe and I were talking about this the other day actually, but I think the thing that's missing from Twitter, other than like a good feeling among human beings, is sincerity and like earnestness. That's kind of what bothers me about it is like everything is just about like making the best joke that you possibly can, and there's no room for like earnestness, Bring back earnestness.

Joe and I were talking about this the other day actually, but I think the thing that's missing from Twitter, other than like a good feeling among human beings, is sincerity and like earnestness. That's kind of what bothers me about it is like everything is just about like making the best joke that you possibly can, and there's no room for like earnestness, Bring back earnestness.

I liked, well, I like the jokes, but what killed what I'm describing is the quote tweet. So not every innovation, not every innovation is good. So there was a time when if somebody said something smart or posted a great chart, you would copy paste that tweet and you would and you would repost it and you would say via at whoever it was, or you would do a manual, or you would do RT. You would write RT, which would tell everyone, this is not my original thought, I'm retweeting this person. Then they built a product that was a quote tweet where you could hit a button and say, I want to comment on this above the person's tweet, and that facilitated a wave of dunking, and dunking is basically like, look, how dumb this person is. So I know that there were people that used it positively also, but I'm just saying like that was something that Twitter built that had a very adverse consequence on the community, and it just it devolved into worse than high school.