Turney Duff's Blog, page 2
April 21, 2018
The Ups & Downs of Volatility
In financial markets, the connotation of the word “volatility” changes depending on where you’re hanging out. If you’re at a midtown Manhattan happy hour on a Thursday firing back a third scotch on the rocks – volatility sounds like a great thing. But if you’re drinking beer with a doctor, an accountant, and an insurance agent at a backyard barbeque in the suburbs – well, it doesn’t feel so great.
Typically, traders love volatility and investors hate it…
For traders, volatility creates far more opportunities to “scalp” a quick trade. Stocks move intraday, and they can get in and out, making money.
But for investors, it makes it much more painful to hold on to smart investments. It can sometimes even force positions to get closed out prematurely. That usually results in generating a loss or no gain, even if the idea ultimately proved correct.
Regardless of your opinion on volatility, the one thing we can say for sure is that it’s back.
February 17, 2018
January 21, 2018
When the Flow of Information Becomes a Flood
Information is the greatest commodity on Wall Street. It’s traded infinitely more than stocks and bonds. All investment decisions are made using it (I hope). Sure, there’s some gut instinct thrown in there for good measure. But overall, every buy and sell ticket has some information and analysis behind it. And the way in which information is being provided and consumed on Wall Street is ever-evolving.
Look no further than recent history to see how the use of technology has changed the flow of information in the financial industry. In the 1990s, the Internet was taking hold, and it brought with it both opportunity and fear. The world around Wall Street began to speed up. Trades that used to take five days were settled in three, and the ability to communicate and obtain information exploded. The advent of Internet technology and e-mail leveled the playing field for many investors.
October 24, 2017
Confessions of a Wall Street Insider
As I inched my Honda Civic up Third Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, I checked my phone…
Who am I meeting with again? Oh yeah, Michael.
He had sent me an e-mail mentioning writing a book, my sobriety, and that he’d worked on Wall Street for years. He asked if we could meet and I agreed. I parked my car and walked to our meeting spot, a coffee shop a few blocks over. As soon as I entered he spotted me and we shook hands.
Michael Kimelman looked successful: clean haircut, well-dressed, and well-mannered. We found a table near the front, and immediately started playing the “Wall Street name game,” connecting on several peers.
If this were a gameshow, we’d have advanced to the next round. We knew a lot of the same people, and although we’d never actually met, we joked about being at the same party and pushing each other out of the way for a drink. And then…
October 20, 2017
Tesla-charging stations and dog spas: What New York’s luxury real-estate buyers want right now
I remember from back when I was a hedge-fund trader in 2004, shopping for my first apartment with a $3 million budget. I was looking for something with the “it” factor. So, I bought a 2,200 square foot open loft that had a Jacuzzi room that fit eight people, with multiple shower heads on the ceiling, a drainage floor and a vapor-proof steam shower door.
Watching the Dow — and real-estate prices — go up every day, it made me wonder: What are the hot new amenities buyers are looking for in New York right now? So, I reached out to several Wall Street professionals and “Million Dollar Listing” star Ryan Serhant.
September 22, 2017
INNOVATION
Success seems so easy to some people, perhaps it’s because they make it simple
September 19, 2017
Renting a Mountain for the Weekend
Usually when you hear about the rich and famous buying a mountain or a private island, it’s with the idea that 1) it’s a status symbol and 2) you can resell it later on and, hopefully, make a profit.
But who would just drop a huge sum of money to rent a mountain?
My friend, Jesse Itzler.
You can’t call him old money or new money. He’s really more “experience money.”
September 5, 2017
The Daily Dirtnap
I had a great time on this podcast with Jared Dillian – We talked about the creative process, writing and the business of books. We also caught up a little bit on Wall Street and the good old days… http://monthlydirtcast.libsyn.com/tmd...
September 1, 2017
7 Things I learned in Adult Summer Camp
This summer, while my daughter and other kids went to summer camp, I spent a weekend at what you might call an adult summer camp … at Sara Blakely and Jesse Itzler’s house.
No, it wasn’t all running around throwing water balloons in our Spanx (Sara is the founder of Spanx). The idea was “Live Life for a Living,” and it was a chance for the grown-ups, so use to worrying about our kids’ development and happiness, to take time out to network, learn and escape from our everyday lives to the idyllic setting of Candlewood Lake in Connecticut.
The “campers” were a diverse group of 50 business professionals from all over the world –from authors to zoologists. There were daily seminars on a variety of topics from entrepreneurship and mental toughness to time management and happiness; relaxation and rejuvenation activities, including morning yoga, hikes, massages and cold plunges; plus waterskiing, cliff jumping, boating and some late night entertainment by Def Jef and Arrested Development.
August 19, 2017
Blue Apron: A two-sided tale on Wall Street
Here]s an article I wrote for American Consequences magazine – I think it’s interesting to see the difference between retail investors and institutional.
https://americanconsequences.com/blue-apron-a-two-sided-tale-on-wall-street/
