From trading floor to tech era, Wall Street’s ‘Einstein’ talks evolution
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) trading floor has changed a lot since its peak in the 1980s, mainly due to advances in technology. While computers now handle most trades, there are still real people on the floor doing important work for investors around the world.
Peter Tuchman, known as the “Einstein of Wall Street” because of his distinctive white hair, is one of the most recognizable figures on the trading floor. He’s been working there for decades, offering valuable insights to clients during both good and bad market conditions— making him the go-to source for understanding market trends.
In the latest episode of Opening Bid, Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi is joined by Tuchman to discuss how market conditions have evolved from then to now. Their conversation covers a wide range of topics, from the performance of major stock indexes to specific companies like Nvidia (NVDA), which has become a leader in artificial intelligence technology.
Video Transcript
Welcome to opening bid.
I’m your trail guide, Brian Sazi.
Now, let’s make some money and get a lot smarter joining us.
Now, uh is longtime New York Stock Exchange floor trader, Peter Tuchman.
Peter.
Good to see you.
I feel bad taking you out of your natural habitat to bring you inside of Yahoo finance Corporates.
It doesn’t even feel, you know what?
It feels good.
I, I’ve done the finance forever but it’s good to be.
This is a spectacular spot.
I’m, I’m happy that they let me out.
It’s I, I’ve actually never seen you outside the New York Stock Exchange or actually every photo on markets known to, man, we’re gonna, we’re gonna talk about that for a second.
So one thing that I’ve never, you know, I come down to the floor.
I see when we talk some markets, I keep them moving.
I go home, but I’m gonna talk to you a little bit about your history.
How did you get to?
Where did you get to?
And what is your origin story?
Ok.
So I grew up in New York City.
Uh My parents are Holocaust survivors.
They came here in 1949.
My father was a doctor.
My mom was his life partner.
They were together for 66 years and it was only old age that ended that relationship.
Uh I actually went to Riverdale country school in New York City.
I ended up, uh I was sort of a bit of an entrepreneur already in high school.
Sort of always wheeling and dealing.
I ended up going to the University of Massachusetts.
My first degree was in agriculture.
So not stocks, it was not stocks, it was not stocks, it was agriculture.
I wasn’t sure where that was going.
I spent a year in Israel.
Uh after high school, I came back uh to the University of Massachusetts, got my degree in agriculture and then a couple of years in it was sort of my, I have an older brother who said, you know what, it’s time to sort of put on your big boy pants and get busy here.
Finance is your game.
I’m telling you that’s what your game is.
And uh so I want you to go out there and get a new, he was in, he was in uh he was a Wall Streeter.
And uh so I ended up getting a degree in international business and in finance and I uh I was on the five year college plan as so many of us were back then.
I came back to New York.
I started trading commodities.
I have uh entered an MB A program at Baruch.
And then I opened up a record store, a jazz record store on Bleeker Street in Lower Manhattan.
So at the same time, you’re trading, commodities, trading, commodities, going to get an MB A and a record store.
And I was managing the Village vanguard and in the jazz business and I, uh clearly an underachiever.
Uh and I did that for a couple of years.
I did that from 19.
I was also the doorman at studio 54.
But that was a, that was a much longer story.
That was great.
I mean, that was, it was the, it was the eighties.
It was wild.
It was the beginning of the red rope.
Uh We, we had a lot of fun back then.
Uh So I did that from 1980 until 1983 and I never finished my MB A but, um I got close, I got close.
I was a couple of credits short and then, uh it was the eighties.
The life was a little bit crazy and I, uh it was time to sort of move on and move, get out of town for a minute.
So I ended up moving to West Africa and, uh I have a friend who, uh worked for a Norwegian oil company for Saga Petroleum.
And so he said, why don’t you come and work with me?
I had some accounting background from uh from college and from my MB A, whatever I did complete of it.
And so I ended up working there for a year.
Uh And uh it was an amazing time.
It was, uh, you know, West Africa is an extraordinary place.
People’s Republic of Benin.
There was, you know, it was a bit controversial.
It was, it was a bit of a dictatorship.
At the time, we didn’t have anything to do with the, the government, but I learned a lot about it, owning a lot of business and whatnot.
And then it was 1985.
It was time to really get down to business and become an adult.
You know, there, there’s a lot of next generation investors.
I know they follow you on Instagram.
I love your Instagram post.
But that are listening to this podcast.
They’re not familiar with the trading floor in the mid eighties to late eighties.
Bring that to life for us.
Sure.
I ended up uh just to quickly uh uh so they understand the the continuity there in, in March of 1985 when all this was said and done.
I got a summer job as a teletype on the floor of the exchange.
There was no training for a job on the exchange.
And back in those days, you have to start at the bottom, whether it was a squad, a tele typist or a clerk.
Teletype was back in the day when they were trading, open outcry auction markets and people would uh buy and sell stock that order would come from the post where you traded to the clerk, the clerk would then report it upstairs.
And then that order was handed to a tele typist who was putting the information into an old school, like clunky old computer who have, who bought, who sold how many shares the price, the time kind of Blockchain in a way because it was the original ledger of the trades because it’s back then it was T plus seven.
It, it took seven days for the actual clearing to go on back then 1985 Wall Street, New York Stock Exchange was wild and crazy.
There were thousands and thousands of people.
It was open outcry auction market.
Um You know, there was the whole support staff that went on on the floor of the exchange brokers, market makers, squads, reporters, clerks, I mean, the, the, the, the, the energy, the adrenaline for me.
The minute I walked onto the floor, I knew this was for me because I thrive on chaos.
I love loud and you seem so calm.
I see you now on the floor, you, you seem calm.
You, if you’re locked in, you’re focused, you, you’re doing what you have to do.
I don’t know if anyone’s ever described me as calm because I’ve been seen for all these years.
But so like in those early days, how do you, how did you go upon sticking out and making a name for yourself?
Because I’ve known you.
I have known you as the Einstein of Wall Street.
I was photographed Trader on the New York Stock Exchange floor.
But this stuff doesn’t happen overnight.
No, it didn’t.
And there was a long time where that was really not my life.
I mean, for in the beginning I went iii I followed the journey like most did having to, I, I was not given any special treatment.
I started as a tele typist.
I’d be once my summer job internship was done.
I said, I love this place.
I wanna work here.
Can I get a job?
And they said, OK, we, we liked you.
You were good at what you did.
And so they gave me a uh a regular job as an option clerk.
So, uh and then a retail clerk and then an institutional clerk and then a broker.
Everybody who comes down to Wall Street, at least back in the day, their goal was to become a broker.
Back in those days, it took anywhere from 11 to 15 years to become a broker because it’s the greatest job in the world.
Nobody ever left.
And there were only limited seats.
Right.
In 1903, they issued 1366 seats that never changed.
So you had to, I got lucky.
I got a seat in three years.
One guy died.
One guy retired, one guy quit.
I was in the right place at the right time.
Right.
Right.
Place right time.
And so I ended up uh becoming a broker, you know, it was not till much, much later after the uh by financial crisis that I became the Einstein of Wall Street, that my persona sort of, you know, rose to the, to become a cult, cult hero, cult hero.
I do.
And I love that II I, it’s, it’s thrilling to me that this personality and this uh this person who loves what they do has been able to find a platform where I can inspire and motivate the next generation of traders and investors to get involved in the market.
How’d you get that name?
Uh OK. Well, obviously I, I look like Einstein.
Trust me.
I’m not that smart.
I I the, the looks are the biggest part of the Einstein thing to be perfectly honest.
Erin Burnett, uh who was then working for C NBC on the floor of the exchange called me a nickname the Einstein.
Yeah, Erin’s wonderful and I’ve not seen her for the longest time, but she called me Einstein.
And uh you know, Mark Haines who was also ac NBC reporter, one of the greats you should.
If you, I, I remember I went on his show twice in my early days when I was an analyst.
You better show prepared or Mark was gonna let you have it.
You used to climb up the stairs to the set and Mark was, you don’t make it like they don’t make like, Mark.
He was the real anymore.
He would sit outside on the Johnny pump on the fire hydron, outside the exchange smoking a cigarette every morning, morning.
And I’d walk by on my way to work and he’d look at me and he’d go, if you’re having a good hair day, it’s gonna be a good market.
And, uh, and, and, and then he sort of started the whole Einstein of Wall Street thing.
And then I had a young Apr person who actually coined the phrase Einstein of Wall Street.
So it kind of happened in a way the, the brand and the character was done by a, a gentleman.
II I shout out to his name is Abstract Vino.
He’s on social media.
He was a uh uh I believe an Iraqi vet who suffered from PTSD.
And he one day sent me a drawing a cartoon of the character that people know me as that sort of emoji.
And it was me on Wall Street and my, everyone jokes, it’s my actual size.
It’s like this big and uh you know, and that sort of all developed.
It was just a social media.
I took to social media that was really fun for me.
Uh uh I didn’t think I had a lot to say back then.
I had a small TV show on uh inside Bop.
There was a German station with a couple of guys from the floor.
I mean, I used to do stuff with uh lexis and all the Yahoo finance people on the floor.
But I sort of, you know, II, I wrote a few things for market watch.
I did a couple of interviews on TV.
And then suddenly I just realized that, you know, my, my approach to the market was different than your normal person analyzing the market.
And then it was that there was a way for me to make it accessible to this new, to the new community.
I was thinking a lot about your career over the uh over the weekend and you endure really two iconic moments among among many, it was the market crash and that September 11th for those not familiar with the markets during those two periods.
What did you learn?
And what was that experience?
Those experiences like?
So I’ve been, I’ve been at the exchange for all of the crisises and or crashes that we’ve had starting with the uh 1987.
I was a clerk back then.
I remember it vividly.
It was probably the, the, the, the most powerful day because I had not been there that long.
Uh uh There was no uh there were no elect electronics involved, there was no technology.
So it was really person to person.
It was, it was a lot of fear in that day.
And it was to me the most significant uh crash that I’ve seen in my, my life except for co each one of the crisises and crashes, we’ve had, have had different components that was powerful in its own, right?
And, um, you know, the power of, of a, of human interaction and the power of the markets, you know, I mean, you saw, you know, people losing fortunes back then, but I also saw the capability and the resilience of human beings in a workplace.
And that for me was just, I, I just loved it and I knew this was something I needed to uh have a, have a role in, you know, obviously 911 was, I had been there for many years, you know, not look what’s significant about the floor of the New York Stock Exchange is the community that’s there.
Going back to the beginning 1903.
It was a place where Italians Jews and Irish came in, you know, work together in a workplace that was just AAA level of humanism.
I always talk about it.
Some of the greatest philanthropic moments where people would always reach out and help each other out, you know, uh face to face in the, in the, in the midst of aggressive financial exchange.
You know, you really get to see who the person is in a lot of ways.
And um 911 was powerful in its own, right.
We lo we fortunately we only lost a couple of people, but we did lose, I lost uh a gentleman named Chicky Pabon who was one of the AD R guys up at Kenner Fitzgerald, his son, Angel, still a good close friend of mine.
He, uh we were on the phone with him.
He was one of our customers when I worked for Robert Corley.
And uh, we just remember he called and he said to his son, he goes, building’s been hit.
We’re told to go up to the roof that they’re going to rescue us.
The phone went dead and that was the last we heard of him.
And um, you know, that traumatized all of us for the longest time we did come back within a week.
Shout out to Richie Grasso.
Uh uh You know, we were able to get the floor about a long time of the New York Stock Exchange.
Yes.
And one of the greats uh in my opinion, and um we were able to get back together and get the, the markets going and hold that thought.
Uh We’re gonna go for a quick break.
Uh Peter, uh don’t go anywhere.
If you’re listening to open and bid, we’ll be rocking our 24 minutes as usual.
So Peter, you’ve been really uh detailing a, I mean, your career, I can’t fit into a 24 minute podcast.
I mean, it’s like 25 podcasts, but really going through the history of your career, the markets.
But here we are today, Dow 40,000, I, I was following you on Instagram.
You have the Dow 40,000 hats and it’s, it’s a big milestone.
What do you think is next for the dow uh, profits are strong companies seem to be doing well.
What’s the next stop?
I think we’re, uh, we are at the crossroads.
We are in an extraordinary, uh, um, time in history for a number of different reasons.
If you were to ask me, where is the market gonna go up or down?
The answer is?
Yes, it does.
The best answer.
OK. What I think is and in a post COVID world with a lot of the economic stuff going on or a lot of the stuff happening globally?
To me, what’s the most exciting thing is that after COVID, we suddenly had an influx of 40 million new traders coming into the market.
OK.
This has never happened before.
All those barriers to entry that were really significant that kept this a very exclusive place, right?
For the general General Joe not to be able to invest in the stock market those days are over.
And I think that that’s a really great thing.
OK?
Not everybody is a adopting it, but I think it’s wonderful to know that suddenly it’s accessible, it’s affordable.
People can do it.
People can start to learn how to trade, whether you use uh futures funded trading, whether you’re using uh become a day trader, whether you join me at Wall Street Global Trading Academy with my partner David Green.
We we train people to learn technical analysis.
It is an extraordinary opportunity for young people to invest in stocks and not stop to get involved in their future and whatnot.
Um Those barriers to entry are down.
And that’s significant to me that the door you’ve suddenly everybody has been invited to this party that they were not allowed to talking about the red ropes at studio 54.
Now everyone has access to this part.
I’ve seen it on, I’ve seen on the a of finance platform in April.
Our latest numbers 100 and 7.5 million unique views, uh viewers.
I believe it’s two times what the number two person is.
We’ve seen people come to the platform, they need better charts, they need research, they want to listen to folks like you veterans.
It’s been a complete democratization of investing exactly the best word to describe it.
What when these, when this next generation of investors come to you, ask you about stocks and markets, what mistakes do you hear them or see them still making great question.
And I really appreciate it because it’s really one of my main goals and missions right now.
Ok. At the bottom of the, at the, at the end of the day, a lot of people are coming to this game and especially we’ve seen it with the meme phenomenon is that this is a get rich quick scheme.
It is not that this is gambling, it is not OK that this is some that, that there is a playbook, there is a menu.
What happened with, with Robin Hood and Weevil and all this accessibility to the markets.
Not one of these platforms offered an educational component to their platform.
It’s like I use the, the, I use the, the, the analogy that if I wanted to learn to be a pilot, I wouldn’t go to Teterboro, grab a set of keys, say to the guy, I’m going to go fly and you’d say good luck.
See you later.
I would study, I would have 100 an hour, 80 hours of reading.
I would sit down with a copilot and fly around and, and log in hours and whatnot before I ever am gonna sit down and fly that plane.
The same thing with trading, you need to learn how to trade.
You look if you want to, you know, and, and what I’m seeing out there too is there are a lot of bad actors in the space people who have these, uh, stock, uh, target signals, you know, stock signals and whatnot where they’ll tell people where it’s the old pump and dump Jordan Belford game.
It’s like I tell you where to buy them, tell you where to sell them.
Pay me $29 a month and you don’t really need to learn how to get my newsletter.
Right.
Exactly.
You know, and, and that’s, that’s unfortunate if you wanna, if you’re hungry, I can give you a fish or I can teach you how to fish.
What do they need to read?
What are the, if, if I want to be, if I’m 21 today, I wanna, I see Peter Tuck.
I wanna be an amazing trader.
What do I need to do today to get me in that spot?
Ok.
So you need to go to Wall Street Global Trading Academy.
We built David Green and I, my partner spent a lot of time around COVID.
When we saw the democratization happen, we saw this, this, this uh uh influx of millions and millions of traders.
We knew it was time to put together something that was really detailed.
Uh We have 21 hours, 21 videos, 200 hours of archival content.
We coach and mentor all our students.
Everybody learns in a different way.
I’m not a book person.
I haven’t read a book since the cat in the hat.
OK?
But I am really a good book.
II, I can motivate virtually anyone to find something that they’ll love in trading and investing.
David Green can find, can teach anybody how to trade as long as you guys follow the rules of discipline and consistency.
That’s what I suggest.
One does is to learn how this is done and not try and find the shortcut because the shortcut may make you a bunch of money really quickly.
But at the end of the day, you’re gonna lose.
We saw that with Gamestop last week when everybody got, got horned into that stock by roaring kitty on Thursday night, I’m getting destroyed on X, I wrote a column, uh, this past weekend, uh on gamestop saying, I think it’s a trap.
Uh What do you say to these meme stock investors that remain believers in Gamestop?
I mean, some of the, the messages I’m getting on X are putrid.
What do I do?
I just hit block.
They don’t have any argument.
They have no clue what the company is fundamentally doing.
And I’m probably to get ripped when we post this thing on, on X.
It’s irresponsible, first of all for the, for the general, for the newcomer into the market to think that this is anything else except that is gambling, right?
It’s irresponsible for that person to go out on Twitter because the look, I, we deal, we are at the crossroads of so many young investors uh for so many young traders who come to me who are still long Gamestop at 480 from the first debacle.
And now they’re going back to the well again to get themselves in trouble.
What I can’t understand is, is why it, it look, it is, it’s social media has created this platform of envy and je jealousy and need and greed.
It’s the bottom line.
And if they see someone lying on the back of a Bugatti with a stack of 10 thousands and they told them they bought Gamestop at two and sold it at 400.
None of which are true.
ISMs.
Right.
Well, they’re gonna try and do it and they will stay in it and stay in it.
It’s going to the moon and, you know it, and, and for me, I, I know for a fact that 90% of the people who are playing in this, in this pond are losing money and blowing up trading accounts, millions of trading accounts were lost were blown up on Friday when everyone got locked in at $67 on Thursday night and it closed at 26 on Friday.
What do you make of, do you think roaring kitty’s popularity just spawns a next generation of roaring kitties and they become even more influential in markets and people lose a lot of money.
Now, you know what?
I have way too much faith in human nature to, to for that to be the case.
I think we’ve noticed that this time around, he hasn’t lasted in the forefront very long two weeks ago when he, when that tweet crypto tweet came out that died really quickly.
And then Thursday and Friday’s thing kind of died quickly too.
I think people are licking their wounds and going home eventually.
You know, the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.
I think they are, they’re, they’re bleeding at the core from all the money that was lost on Thursday.
And Friday at some point, look, we can take the, you know, the the horse to water, but you can’t make uh all I can do is go out there and share my experience in markets that at the end of the day, this is making money trading.
The market investing in your future.
Creating a portfolio is the most exciting thing in the world.
Losing money is one of the most painful things.
And there’s a pretty clear line that you don’t need to cross to do that.
I imagine to be a successful trader, you have to be patient and you have to stay disciplined.
But how do you employ those when you see in video going up every day?
Now, granted this company has the fundamentals to back this.
What do you do with a stock like that at this point?
So look, I’m not, you’re, I’m not anyone’s advisor and I don’t invest in the market myself because I’m trading for customers and I have certain lines, I’m not allowed to cross.
I think you need to look at first of all, speaking of, shout out to Dan Ives.
This is a revolution, right?
This is a phenomenon.
This is not enough.
1990 1999 moment.
It’s a 1995 moment, meaning that there is a foundation and strength uh uh uh with the A I story and it’s real and it’s going to change our lives in a good way.
I wasn’t sure about that when I started talking to Dan.
But at the end of the day, look, the stock a year ago is at 100 and eight, it’s now trading at $1200 and just split 10 for one.
You know what the style is?
It a rational enthusiasm perhaps, do the numbers and the earnings and the future forecasts, uh uh support the numbers.
They are apparently.
So people are way smarter than me.
It’s not my specialty analysis is not.
But according to Dan, it’s trading, right where it is supposed to be trading and like so do, where do you buy it?
Where do you sell?
It should and have it in their portfolio?
I can’t tell anyone what to do with that as a trading vehicle.
It’s a great stock.
As long as you’re using technicals, technical analysis to do that, right?
Shout out to WSGT a.com.
Come and learn with us.
There is a way to learn how to trade trading and investing are two different uh lanes in the bowling alley is, is a I A bubble.
According to Dan, it is not.
And that’s why we say it’s not a 99 it’s a 95 moment, not a not a 99 moment.
His belief is that the, that this is going to have uh have such a broad breath in our lives in the fabric of our lives going forward in a positive way.
My idea of a I was like, they were gonna outsource human beings and we’re gonna like him and nobody’s pro um at the end of the day, according to Dan, and I really trust him.
He’s so bright is that this is going to change our lives.
It’s going to affect so many different parts of our, whether it’s health care, whether it’s any number of different industries in a positive way that there’s trillions of dollars being thrown at this sector.
Belief is it’s not a bubble in the 30 seconds.
I have left.
I usually leave that open for guests to help inspire the next generation investors for that next generation investors which you talked about, they have a lot of information coming at them.
It’s confusing.
What’s the one thing they can do today to just make it easier to understand markets, you know, what avail yourself of as much information as you can find something in the market that excites you, right?
Not everybody is wants to be a trader or an investor, but there’s so much embedded in this.
Look at the, the the branding and the marketing that goes into the stock market and all that.
Find something in it that excites you that makes your do is flowing that what you want to do like this, that great line.
If you find something you love to do, you’ll never work a day in your life, not my line but find that in the market that get that, that gets you excited about it and uh and go for it and learn and become good at it.
I’ll just say this lastly real quick.
Um Thank you for always being a friend to our finance throughout the pandemic.
You would come on remote.
Uh I know it was a challenging time for you.
You never wavered and we thank you and we appreciate it, Peter Tuckman.
Good to see you as always.
And that’s it for the latest episode of opening bid.
