In the latest Read The Bull interview recorded live from Vassar College, Professor Paulina Bren, discusses her acclaimed book "She Wolves: The Untold History of Women on Wall Street," which she notes takes over from her previous book, "The Barbizon." She-Wolves, now out in paperback, chronicles women's experiences in finance from the 1950s through 9/11. Despite having little knowledge about finance, Bren noted she became fascinated with the women who went to work on Wall Street. She undertook extensive research to uncover stories of pioneering women who were largely invisible in traditional financial histories.

Bren tells Read the Bull host Stefan Prelog that the book explores how early women entered Wall Street through clerical positions and research departments, often coming from working-class backgrounds. Bren highlights numerous women throughout the book, but she alternates her focus on six woman - Muriel "Mickie" Siebert (first woman to buy a NYSE seat), Alice Jarcho (first woman floor trader), Marianne Spraggins (early mortgage-backed securities expert), Lillian Hobson (the first African American woman to receive a Harvard University MBA), Beth Dater (one of the first female media analysts) and Doreen Mogavero (founder of the first and only floor based, direct access firm to be wholly owned and operated by women). Bren's book covers the evolution from scrappy 1950s-70s pioneers to MBA-educated 1980s professionals, examining how changing market conditions, and the cultural landscape helped shaped women's experiences.

Bren explains ending her narrative at 9/11 as a pivotal moment when Wall Street's geographic identity dissolved, marking the end of an era for the financial district's unique culture and community. The discussion touches on the global financial crisis, another flashpoint for women on Wall Street as many long-standing investments firms like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Bren's book is delightful look at these pioneering women on Wall Street, but it also tells the story of how women became an integral part of the workforce. "She-Wolves" is a must read. 

Go to ReadTheBull.com for more information.

In the latest episode, host Stefan Prelog talks with Brian Portnoy, a leading behavioral finance expert and author of multiple influential finance books, including "The Investor's Paradox," "The Geometry of Wealth" and "How I Invest My Money." Portnoy brings a unique perspective, having transitioned from a 15-year career in investment management to becoming a behavioral finance expert and starting a business that's helping transform the wealth management industry.

Portnoy discusses the concept behind his first book, "The Investor's Paradox," which was modeled off Barry Schwartz's "The Paradox of Choice." The concept - while humans crave choice and autonomy, too many options lead to decision paralysis and unhappiness. Portnoy applied the concept to investment management selection and he noted the phenomenon is particularly pronounced in today's financial services landscape, where thousands of investment options create overwhelming complexity rather than clarity.

Central to the discussion is Portnoy's concept of "funded contentment" - true wealth as the ability to underwrite a meaningful life rather than simply accumulating more money. Portnoy introduces his geometric framework: circle (define purpose), triangle (set priorities), and square (make decisions) in his second book, "The Geometry of Wealth." This approach emphasizes starting with "why" before focusing on investment selection.

Portnoy observes significant improvements in the financial advisory industry over the past 10-15 years, particularly with the rise of independent advisors who focus on client goals rather than product sales. However, he notes that many clients still lack someone to truly discuss money concerns with, despite working with financial advisors. 

Portnoy's last book, How I Invest My Money, published in 2020 was a collaboration with Josh Brown, CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management and a well-known CNBC commentator. The book evolved from a viral blog post that Brown wrote about how he actually deploys his capital and makes investments. Portnoy and Brown featured other finance experts, including Morgan Housel, Christine Benz and others discussing how they put money to work.

The conversation also touches on AI's transformative impact on wealth management and financial planning, with Portnoy predicting sophisticated AI financial advisors by 2027. His company, Shaping Wealth, is developing AI tools to help human advisors have more meaningful, empathetic conversations with clients.

Throughout the interview, Portnoy emphasizes that the most fundamental client question isn't about market predictions or investment picks, but simply: "Am I going to be okay?"

Go to ReadTheBull.com for more information.

The 16th episode of Read the Bull is a fascinating discussion with Zeke Faux, a Bloomberg investigative reporter and author of the best selling book, "Number Go Up."

Cryptocurrency is ubiquitous. You can't escape the endless news coverage on the price of crypto, or hearing your college friends talk about that one friend who made a killing buying DOGE coin. The slang associated with it seems juvenile, but people are making real money trading it, and its value is zooming once again on the heels of Donald Trump's victory, as investors anticipate a regulatory-friendly regime. But how does it really work and what are its real-world applications?

Zeke wanted out to answer those questions and sets out to explore the real-world uses of Crypto.  His reporting takes him around the world to the Bahamas, Switzerland, El Salvador, Cambodia, the Philippines and Vietnam. 

The book, published last year by Crown Publishing, is an exhaustive look at the world of cryptocurrency and the people behind it, but Stefan learns that the book has an auspicious genesis. Zeke's speciality is writing about financial fraud, but his interest in the topic is piqued when one of his friends starts bragging about making money in what he called Doggie coin. Zeke sets out to show his friend that DOGE coin and other cryptocurrencies  

His journey into the crypto world starts by looking into the popular stable-coin Tether and its founders. Searching for the people who started Tether is easier said than done, but along the way Zeke is quickly introduced to crypto's world of oddball characters - scammers, zealots, an actor from the Mighty Ducks and the creator of Inspector Gadget. 

It also includes Sam Bankman Fried, the founder of FTX and now convicted felon. Zeke was introduced to SBF early on and attended his star-studded Bahamas  crypto conference. Later, when the FTX and Alameda Research fraud unwind, Zeke heads back to the Bahamas and scores an interview with SBF that spans 11 hours. 

Zeke finds that Tether is heavily used by criminals and he follows the trail to Cambodia where he interviews people who have been lured to country with he promise of high-paying customer service jobs and then are trapped in pig butchering farms, where they're forced to scam unwitting targets around the world.

Stefan's impressed by Zeke's commitment to his subject, noting the time he had to tell his wife he had purchase a $20,000 mutant cartoon ape in order to get into a week-long the NFT event. 

Zeke skepticism about cryptocurrency's use only grows after his investigations. While acknowledging that crypto prices have rebounded since the 2022 crash and FTX's collapse, he argues there's no real innovation justifying these higher values. 

"Number Go Up" is a wild-ride that seems more like a science-fiction novel, but readers will learn more about cryptocurrency and how its used than any other book out there.

This is a conversation you don't want to miss.

Go to ReadTheBull.com for more information.

The 15th episode of Read the Bull is the Fall 2024 Book Preview. Portfolio Wealth CIO Lee Munson joins host Stefan Prelog for an in-depth discussion about timeless investing classics, finance beach reads and a new slate books to watch for this fall.
 
Lee talks to Stefan about the recent market volatility and how he prepares clients for moments like this. Lee's clients are concerned about the 2024 Presidential election and what the potential outcomes means for their portfolios. 

In addition to managing his clients' portfolios, Lee's been busy reading and he  dives in to the books he's read over the summer. He's reread some investing classics including the third edition of Justin Mamis' 1977 book "When to Sell," the 1965 edition of Gerald Loeb's "The Battle for Investment Survival" and all of Peter Lynch's books, including "One Up on Wall Street," which Lee says has given his life new breath. Lee also touts "38 Letters from J.D. Rockefeller to his Son," and notes investors can learn a lot by reading "The Science of Getting Rich," by Wallace Wattles and the early investment letters of Warren Buffett.

Lee also recounts some of the newer books he's read including Carrie Sun's "Private Equity" and the financial novel "The Vegan" by Andrew Lipstein. Lee also gained an appreciation for Bill Gross' impact on the bond market after reading Mary Childs' "The Bond King."

The 2024 Fall book preview highlights a slate of new titles including, "Making Sense of Chaos: A Better Economics for a Better World" by J. Doyne Farmer, "She-Wolves: The Untold Story of the Women on Wall Street," by Paulina Bren, "The Little Investment That Beats the Market," by Joel Greenblatt, a new edition of "The Intelligent Investor," by Benjamin Graham that includes new commentaries for every chapter by Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig, and "Myth of Money: Breaking Out of the Failing Financial System" by Tatiana Koffman
who's a General Partner at the digital assets investment firm Moonwalker Capital.

Listen to the episode to hear what Stefan and Lee have to say about these new books and if they'll stand the test of time.

Go to ReadTheBull.com for more information.

The 14th episode of Read the Bull is an unfiltered discussion with Scott Fearon, author of "Dead Companies Walking: How a Hedge Fund Manager Finds Opportunity in Unexpected Places," published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015.  If you want to know how a veteran long/short hedge fund manager approaches investing, this is the interview for you.

Scott started Crown Advisors Management, a long/short equity hedge fund, in 1990.  He manages around $180 million and invests in small and mid-size public companies that have around a $200 - $300 million market cap. He invests on the long side in companies he finds that are undervalued, and also shorts companies that he believes are headed for zero.

Before Scott started his firm, he worked at Texas Commerce Bank in the 1980s. It's there he learned the value of face-to-face meetings, and he tells Stefan that he's visited and met with the management of every company he invests in on the long side. At the time of the book's publication, he had visited 1,400 companies. Now, almost 10 years later, that number is well north of 2,000 companies.

When he started to write "Dead Companies Walking," Scott looked back at the 200 companies he'd shorted and gone bankrupt and found they all made the same strategic mistakes. Scott distilled those mistakes into six themes for why a company fails - Historical Myopia, Getting too Attached to Formulas, Disregarding or Overlooking Your Customers, Madness and Manias, Failing to Recognize Tectonic Shifts, and Not Accepting Blame or Incorrectly Assigning Blame to External Forces.

Some of the stories are well known - Blockbuster's failure to recognize the shift to digital streaming or JC Penney's CEO Ron Johnson ignoring its customers by shifting to a no-sale strategy and bringing in more fashionable merchandise. Others are not as well known - Quokka Sports - a company that wanted to bring immersive viewing to Yacht Racing or First Team Sports, a company that went all in on inline skating. Scott also discusses some of his recent company visits and reveals a couple that he believes will ultimately go to zero. He also talks about why short selling is good for markets and notes that highlights three categories - fads, frauds and failures. 

Scott's not immune to failure himself, and he walks Stefan through mistakes his made, including what led to the demise of his first restaurant.

Scott is not your typical hedge fund manager, or at least not the one you typically read about in the Wall Street Journal or see on CNBC. He stopped taking outside capital years ago and focuses solely on finding companies to invest in or to bet against. That means he doesn't have to market his fund or raise new capital to grow assets like many hedge funds out there.  It also means he can also speak truth to power and pull the curtain back on some of the things that are wrong with the industry. For example, he criticizes hedge fund managers who chase assets, as well as the allocators who cheer them on.

Scott's book is timeless and there are lessons here for everyone - whether you own a business, work for one or are investing in them. 

Go to ReadTheBull.com for more information.

The 13th episode of Read the Bull is a fascinating conversation with Patricia Walsh Chadwick, author of "Breaking Glass, Tales from the Witch of Wall Street." Patricia enjoyed a 30-year career in finance and held roles as a research analyst, portfolio manager, director of research, and investment strategist.

The book details Patricia's career, which began at a time where the majority of women in finance held administrative roles.  Patricia explains that she had a long-held secret from her colleagues that only came to light when she published her memoir, "Little Sister" in 2019. Patricia was forced to survive on her own, when at age 17 she was abruptly dismissed from the religious community that her and her family belonged to since she was six years old. The community had transformed into a cult over time and Patricia never revealed anything about her upbringing until she shared her book with her colleagues and friends.

Her second book, "Breaking Glass," details her meandering but ultimately, impressive career after being cast out of the cult. Finding her way in the late 1960s, at a tumultuous time in our country, was challenging in its own right, but Patricia had the added challenge of being thrust out in a world where she had never read a newspaper, never seen a movie, never went to a restaurant and didn't know any curse words.

Still, she was equipped with a stellar education thanks to her teacher and first mentor, Sister Ann Mary Cobb.

Patricia explains how she navigated the world in those early days and eventually landed a secretarial position at Ladenburg Thalmann, a Boston-based brokerage firm.  She talks to Stefan about those early days and details how she continued to gain experience and advance her investment management career, working for places like Citicorp, the Ford Foundation and Invesco. She credits much of her success to a handful of mentors, and dedicated the book to those individuals, including George Burden, Sherif Nada, Jay Light and Peter Vermilye.

Patricia details the ups and downs of her career and provides her perspective on the 1982 bull market, 1987 crash and other moments she witnessed first-hand. She also explains how she earned the nickname "The Witch of Wall Street," a moniker she was unaware of until her 70th birthday party.

Stefan and Patricia end the interview discussing what women starting out in finance can learn from her experience. Patricia also highlights her work on boards and and her current role as pro bono chief executive officer of Anchor Health Initiative Corporation, a Connecticut-based not-for-profit health care organization she founded in 2016 that provides primary and specialty health care needs of the LGBTQ community. 

Books detailing women's careers in finance and investing are rare, but more women are detailing their journeys. "Breaking Glass" is a worthy addition to the burgeoning genre.

Go to ReadTheBull.com for more information.

The 12th episode of Read the Bull is an engrossing interview with New York Times Finance reporter Rob Copeland discussing his book "The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend." Taped in front of live audience at the historic Troutbeck Inn, Rob and host Stefan Prelog have a lively conversation about Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates. Rob started covering Bridgewater and Dalio more than a decade ago.  Rob noted that it was Dalio's meteoric rise outside the world of hedge funds and investing that interested him in writing about him. He knew about Bridgewater's secretive culture, but as he started reporting on Ray and the firm for the Wall Street Journal, more details started to emerge about what was really going on at the $93B hedge fund that Dalio started in 1975. Rob recounts those initial stories revealed that Dalio was trying to build software that would make day-to-day management tasks like hiring, firing and other decisions, but that was just the tip of the iceberg.  

The system was under the auspices of Dalio all in the name of radical transparency, which was the cornerstone of Bridgewater and Dalio's philosophy. The philosophy was based on an ever-growing set of principles that were started by Dalio and eventually put into a book that was part memoir and part management/leadership manifesto. Rob discusses how the Principles were a retro-fit, an approach by Dalio to come up with rules that he touted as keys to success for personal growth, but the reality was much different.
 
Eventually the truth is revealed and the real image of Dalio starts to emerge. Copeland, through intrepid reporting, presents a much different portrait of the one Dalio has carefully curated and wants people to believe. How did Dalio really build his business, was Bridgewater a cult, was the fund really just a Ponzi scheme? 

Stefan presses Rob on these questions, but the truth is more complicated. You'll need to listen to the interview and decide for yourself.

Go to ReadTheBull.com for more information.

Jared Dillian was Read The Bull's first guest and he's back again in our latest episode. Jared's been busy since his first appearance - publishing not one, but two books - a book of essays titled "Those Bastards" and  a personal finance guide  - "No Worries: How to Live a Stress Free Financial Life."  

Jared tells Stefan Prelog he hosted a syndicated radio show where he fielded a lot of personal finance questions. He decided to dome some research on the genre and found that most of the books were crap. Jared explains that most personal finance books are gimmicky and focused on subtraction.  Think about the tired advice of not buying a daily coffee at Starbucks or cutting up all your credit cards.  He notes that these methods will work, but the mistake is that the focus is on depriving yourself. 

Jared wanted to write a practical book aimed at freeing people of financial stress. He starts by addressing  how to develop a healthy attitude with money and then focuses on two categories responsible for the bulk of financial stress - debt and risk. 

Jared strips down the jargon and walks Stefan through the biggest financial decisions a person will make - going to college, buying a car and buying a house.  Stefan confronts some of the bad financial decisions he's made in the past and debates Jared on some of his recent financial moves. 

Jared also explains his approach to fighting market volatility and walks Stefan through his "Awesome Portfolio," which is a collection of investments across different asset classes. 

You'll walk away from this conversation smarter and less stressed about money. 

Go to ReadTheBull.com for more information.

The 10th episode of Read The Bull is an in-depth conversation with WSJ's Gregory Zuckerman.  Greg is an investigative reporter and a 27-year veteran of the paper who writes about business and investing topics. Greg is a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb Award—the highest honor in business journalism.

Greg's written six books, including "A Shot to Save the World: The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine," "The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution," "The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters," and “The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History.” Greg's written two books with his sons,  "Rising Above: How 11 Athletes Overcame Challenges in their Youth to Become Stars,” and "Rising Above: Inspiring Women in Sports."

Greg's an intrepid reporter, but he's also a compelling story teller. 

Stefan and Greg discuss in the interview the common thread in his books - breaking down complex topics and telling stories through the people.  Zuckerman reveals that behind all of his books are interesting characters who are the unexpected people leading a revolution - whether it's the small companies leading the charge to find a vaccine for COVID, the wildcatters extracting oil and natural gas buried in shale rock deep below the ground,  a merger arbitrage specialist who unearths the greatest trade or the team of mathematicians who consistently beat the stock market.

Greg  reveals about how he's able to get sources to talk including the secretive and publicity-shy subjects of his books, including John Paulson and Jim Simons.

Greg talks about his writing process and explains why he's taking more time to write his next book.

Check out the interview and see if Stefan can find out the subject for Greg's seventh title. 

Go to ReadTheBull.com for more information.

The ninth episode of Read The Bull is a lively conversation with  Anthony Scaramucci, Founder and Managing Partner, SkyBridge, and founder and chairman of SALT. 

Scaramucci discusses his colorful Wall Street career and details how he's distilled his many experiences into his six books including his first, "Goodbye Gordon Gekko," a nod to Michael Douglas' villainous character in the iconic film 1987 "Wall Street" and the 2010 sequel "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps."  Scaramucci describes "Goodbye Gordon Gekko" as a right-of-passage in which he details his early career and lessons learned along the way, from his stints at Goldman Sachs to starting his own hedge fund, Oscar Capital Management and eventually starting SkyBridge and the SALT conference.

Scaramucci met host Stefan Prelog 15 years ago and they reminisce about the experience working together on Scaramucci's second book The Little Book of Hedge Funds, published by Wiley.

For the uninitiated, Scaramucci is a financier, but he's also an entrepreneur and a risk taker who isn't afraid to tell it like it is.  Scaramucci draws strength from his experiences and advises people to embrace failure and learn from their mistakes. Scaramucci uses his foray into politics and his 11-day stint as White House Communications Director as an example. He explains that the experience of getting fired and roasted by the media was one of the most challenging in his career, but he was determined to get back up, which he did. 

A voracious reader himself, Scaramucci shares his own reading list and notes he's used books as a didactic tool throughout his life. He astutely points out that you can get condensed knowledge from reading books. Scaramucci himself has authored six books, and he discusses his approach to writing and reveals the title of his yet-to-be-released seventh book.

Prelog and Scaramucci cover a lot of ground, from writing to philosophy and even  Yiddish literature. You'll learn Scaramucci's favorite Yiddish words and who he thought gave a better performance parodying him - Bill Hader or Mario Cantone. 

Whether you know Scaramucci or only know about him from what you've read, you'll want to tune in and listen to this episode. 

Go to ReadTheBull.com for more information.