Very insightful to listen to an interview between Pimm Fox of Bloomberg and Michael D. Robbins and his long experience with the New York Stock Exchange as a floor trader and later brokerage owner, a career which began in the 1950′s when trading volume was painfully small, and reading the ticker tapes was an art form or literary proportions. It’s good to be aware that good role models in the financial industry exist and individuals are aware of the larger contexts from which they work. It does remind of Peyton Manning and his respect for the game and those who have come before.
Read More:http://www.pdfmagazines.org/magazines/business/23274-advertising-age-20-august-2012.html
What was most impressive is that Robbins reads Advertising Age and Variety on a faithful and loyal basis that goes back fifty years; he asserts that more is gained and gleaned from these publications, far more, than perusing the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Barrons and the rest of the financial press which probably includes Motley Fool, Kramer et al. It’s a similar approach that IBM used to take in recruitment, in looking for bright candidates who had non-business and management degrees, as a way of tapping into out of the box thinking.
Read More: —http://www.pdfmagazines.org/magazines/business/23274-advertising-age-20-august-2012.html—
For your information, Robbins feels we are entering a “maudlin” period on the markets where the traditional tech movers will pressed to lead. Robbins crystal ball favors agriculture stocks like Unilver and Nestle as well as gold stocks. He was bearish in his coal holdings which he claimed, “have not returned the love.”
(see link at end)…In 1962, Robbins bought a membership on the New York Stock Exchange for $120,000 with his own money following a dip in prices for exchange seats following a dip in the stock market following President John F. Kennedy’s showdown with the steel industry.
Owing one of 1366 seats on the exchange, Robbins was one of three owners of his seat during the last century. He traced his seat’s lineage back to Harold Higgins, who bought the seat in 1933. Higgins had bought the seat and Ralph Ranlet, who had purchased it in 1907.
Robbins was on the NYSE trading floor in 1962 for the culmination of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. He described in the Bloomberg Radio interview the panic buying that followed the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis as his first experience with panic in the markets, panic to the upside.
He founded Robbins & Henderson LLC, a New York Stock Exchange brokerage firm with fellow member Christopher Henderson. They later sold the firm to Van der Moolen in 2007. Robbins served as chairman of the firm.
From 1992 to 1998, Robbins served on the board of directos of the NYSE, which included the beginning of the term of Dick Grasso as Chairman and CEO of the NYSE starting in 1995.[7]Read More:http://www.marketswiki.com/mwiki/Michael_D._Robbins
Another moment Robbins recounted in interview was the reaction on the stock market floor when Ronald Reagan proclaimed, “We’re going to turn the bulls loose,” describing the atmosphere as something electrifying, as in a sports event..
(see link at end)…On March 28, 1985, President Ronald Reagan made his first of two visits to the NYSE to salute the robust American expansion, as well as the central role of the New York Stock Exchange as the nerve center of entrepreneurial capitalism. President Reagan was the first sitting U.S. president to visit the NYSE.
At 9:53 a.m. that morning, President Reagan—amid a roaring ovation—addressed the Exchange community from the bell podium. Flanked by his chief of staff, Donald T. Regan and NYSE chairman and CEO John J. Phelan, Jr., President Reagan proclaimed: “We’re bullish on the American Economy. The American Economy is like a race horse that’s begun to gallop in front of the field.” Aiming to drive “the bears back into hibernation,” he said, “that’s our economic program for the next four years—we’re going to turn the bull loose.” Read More:http://www.nyse.com/about/newsevents/1173438599705.html
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