Wall Street Behind the Headlines

There’s plenty to discuss in the financial headlines these days. In my post, CEO Overboard, I explored the mindset behind insider trading. Why do wildly successful people take chances, risk public humiliation and time in the big house, when they already have so much money?

In Modern Portfoolio Theory, I speculated that the SEC’s charges against Galleon are the first shot across the bow. No doubt there will be other funds in Hedgistan that are charged with breaking the rules. The drive to get an edge will morph into a new issue:

Is that “edge” insider trading?

Galleon, the SEC, and Wall Street’s financial scandals will dominate the news for months to come. But what about the people in the trenches, the stockbrokers and financial advisers that slog through their days outside the public’s view? What is their world like?

I wrote Top Producer to shed some light on the world of private wealth management. Although my novel is a thriller—the focus is on relationships rather than finance—I think the following excerpt illustrates the pressures that accompany money management. Grove O’Rourke, a good guy and the hero of Top Producer, is the narrator:

Wall Street is all about angst. My contemporaries fear everything. We fear the loss of clients. It happens all too often. We fear that others have better information. Somebody wants to sell what we want to buy. We fear the Securities and Exchange Commission and the other regulators who govern us. We fear risk. But we fear running in the middle of the pack even more. So we take risks. We fear our wagers will look stupid and talking heads will expose our follies within seconds. Wall Street may be about “swag,” the best word I have ever heard for money. It may be about ego and hormones and the glory of betting big and being right. But it is fear that makes us who we are. I worry about my clients and pray they never succumb to our schizoid mind-set.

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