[quote=joedabrkr] [quote=Put Trader] [quote=tjc45]

Are you less talented than they? I doubt it. If you do it yourself you own it and noone other than you can decide your future.

[/quote]

First of all, that story is akin to claiming that it rained once in Timbuktu, therefore you're crazy to go there on vacation without rain gear.  Schidt happens--but doing silly things for fear that you might get hit by a meteor is not good mental health.

Starting out as a member of a team is a very efficent way to enter the business--oh sure, you may or may not inherit part (or all) of a huge book but at least you might.

The whine about every issue in your senior partner's life affecting your life is not really true--in fact if he is screwed up in his personal life it's probably more likely that he'll turn business over to a junior partner.  Even if you just get to handle some of his accounts, at least you're talking to people who might decide that you're who they want to stay with if the jerk you're working for decides to walk out on his wife and marry a chipmunk.

When you're under thirty your best bet is to find a mentor to guide you--be satisfied with being a junior in a junior/senior dynamic.  I realize that when you're not yet fully grown it seems like "forever" till Santa comes again--but spending five years as a junior broker can come back and reward you many fold when you're old enough that a year is no longer a significant portion of your entire life.
[/quote]

Having done it the hard way, Put, and succeeded but with much strain and learning from experience, I tend to agree with you completely on this one.

How is it that to become an electician, say in Local 1 working on Broadway, one must first start as an apprentice, then become a journeyman electrician, and so forth, spending years learning from mentors and gaining experience before eventually becoming a Master Electrician.

Meanwhile, in our business, you can interview and get a job, study for 90 days, get your series 7, maybe attend 6 weeks of offsite training, and then be ready to go out and destroy someone's net worth?  I've always wondered why we continue(as an industry) to do things that way.
[/quote]

Any one of us can walk into The Flight Safety school in Vero Beach and be flying people around in jet airliners in less than six months. The electrician thing has more to do with job protection than training. You can't get onto a job site without a union card and you don't get the big money until you pay your dues, both monetary and time. It's about control, not quality of work product.

Mentoring relationships can be a great way to get started. Probably better that the firm match the parties involved. Within the context of this thread however, the firm isn't chosing the mentor. There are many pitfalls to this type of arrangement that could just as easily derail a promising trainee. My advise is no more than encouraging this individual to know all she can know about her future business partner. Her future depends on it.

Put, I've lived in Timbuktu. It's very wet!

[quote=tjc45]

Any one of us can walk into The Flight Safety school
in Vero Beach and be flying people around in jet airliners in less than
six months.

Meanwhile, in our business, you can interview and get a job, study for 90 days, get your series 7, maybe attend 6 weeks of offsite training, and then be ready to go out and destroy someone's net worth?  I've always wondered why we continue(as an industry) to do things that way.
[/quote]

I agree, how many people out there did absolutely nothing positive for our clients in our first year of biz?  (be honest, now)  If I would have had a closer relationship with a senior broker, I don't believe I would have make some of the mistakes that most of us have made in the beginning.  Time in this business is a wonderful educator, and if it can be done under the wing of a senior broker, thats all the better.

[quote=Put Trader] [quote=tjc45]

Any one of us can walk into The Flight Safety school in Vero Beach and be flying people around in jet airliners in less than six months.

[/quote]

Is that right?  I was always under the impression that pilots of jet airliners had a few hours of experience before they took their seat, but you're saying that I'm wrong?
[/quote]

1,000 hours, minimum, before the small regionals will even interview a pilot for jet training.

[quote=Phlyin’ Phule][quote=Put Trader] [quote=tjc45]

Any one of us can walk into The Flight Safety school in Vero Beach and be flying people around in jet airliners in less than six months.

[/quote]

Is that right?  I was always under the impression that pilots of jet airliners had a few hours of experience before they took their seat, but you're saying that I'm wrong?
[/quote]

1,000 hours, minimum, before the small regionals will even interview a pilot for jet training.

Flying IS breathing to a pilot, genius.

[quote=Phlyin’ Phule]Flying IS breathing to a pilot, genius.[/quote]



Chill.

[quote=maybeeeeeeee]

 But state that in 2 years time you would like to be an advisor with at least a $10m book and $150,000 in income.  [/quote]

Wow 10 Million AUM and $150,000 net income - a 1.5 ROA - unless you are doing some major churning, isnt that a bit high?

[quote=Put Trader] [quote=Phlyin' Phule]Flying IS breathing to a pilot, genius.[/quote]

Chill.

[/quote]

As long as you bray like a jackass you'll be treated like one.

[quote=Put Trader] [quote=tjc45]

Any one of us can walk into The Flight Safety school in Vero Beach and be flying people around in jet airliners in less than six months.

[/quote]

Is that right?  I was always under the impression that pilots of jet airliners had a few hours of experience before they took their seat, but you're saying that I'm wrong?
[/quote]

Who am i to say anyone is wrong? If you are under the impression that the people at the controls of the regional jet you are taking to visit me in Timbuktu are old hands then you are merely uniformed. Major airlines have hired pilots with as little as 500 hours and regionals will take any graduate of a decent flight school that can pass their flight test. Their main requirement is turbine time. Many of the flight schools are owned by the regionals. Others have agreements with regionals. Graduating from Flight Safety is as good as a guarantee of a job. It's really not that big a deal. The pilots flying our helicopters for the Army had four weeks to fly solo. If not they go from flight school to ground pounding. Similar time frames for Air force/Navy/Marines. But here's a scary thought. The guy piloting the 40 ton 18 wheeler parked 4 feet off your bumper at 70mph got his license after taking a three week driving course. Then Werner, JB Hunt or Schneider or some other driver slave company gave them another three weeks with a co driver/trainer. Now six weeks after starting and making all of 27 cents a mile, after spending all morning transporting pallets 5 miles between yard A and yard B, you and your family are the only thing between him and a decent day's pay.

As for young brokers damaging clients, I didn't realize that was limited to the domain of the inexperienced. If only it were!  As for me, when i was a pup i sold only tax free bonds. Hard to screw somone with a good tax free. About six months in, another trainee and i came up with a can't miss option strategy that we wanted to unlease on our clients. We took it to our manager who was impressed with our work. He said, let's do on paper first for 30 days and then we'll review the results. Needless to say there was no reason for a review, the paper losses were massive. My manager was wise beyond his years.

[quote=tjc45]

As for young brokers damaging clients, I didn’t
realize that was limited to the domain of the inexperienced. If only it
were!  As for me, when i was a pup i sold only tax free
bonds. Hard to screw somone with a good tax free.

[quote=Put Trader] [quote=tjc45]

As for young brokers damaging clients, I didn't realize that was limited to the domain of the inexperienced. If only it were!  As for me, when i was a pup i sold only tax free bonds. Hard to screw somone with a good tax free.

[quote=Put Trader] [quote=tjc45]

As for young brokers damaging clients, I didn't realize that was limited to the domain of the inexperienced. If only it were!  As for me, when i was a pup i sold only tax free bonds. Hard to screw somone with a good tax free.

[/quote]

The second sleaziest segment of the securities industry are the "Bond Daddies."

It is remarkably easy to screw people with tax free bonds--remarkably easy.
[/quote]

I agree! Selling high yield non rated hospital bonds and such to the lambs. Whew, outside of bank brokers slinging annuities at their depositors it just doesn't get much dirtier. Of course I did say good tax free bonds. Not that it matters. And it wasn't the Bond Daddies who screwed people with bonds. I believe that honor went first to Salomon Bros.

[quote=tjc45]

And it wasn’t the Bond Daddies who screwed people with bonds. I believe that honor went first to Salomon Bros.

[quote=Put Trader] [quote=tjc45]

And it wasn't the Bond Daddies who screwed people with bonds. I believe that honor went first to Salomon Bros.

[/quote]

Nah, Sollie came to the table late.  They made world class hogs of themselves but the legendary Memphis Bond Daddies pre-date Sollie by at least a decade.

The current Little Rock Bond Bandits are worse than Meyer Blinder ever hoped to be.

We'll always have the pump and dump types, the Forex types and the Bond Bandits--and that's good so the rest of the whores look good by comparison.
[/quote]

The Little Rock Bond Bandits? Who are they and who gave them that name?

What is Forex?

[quote=tjc45]

The Little Rock Bond Bandits? Who are they and who gave them that name?

What is Forex?

[quote=Put Trader] [quote=tjc45]

The Little Rock Bond Bandits? Who are they and who gave them that name?

What is Forex?

[/quote]

Sometime in the years following WW-II the municipal bond business began to flourish and for reasons that are murkey several firms that specialized in selling munis in the secondary market were created in Memphis.

They preyed on small town banks who had money to plow into bonds, but were too small for the big firms in New York and Chicago to fool with.

The Memphis Bond Daddy filled a need--they serviced these banks.  They also built into their trades some rather extraordinary "chop," but since the Acts of '33 and '34 exempted municipal securities from SEC oversight there was no policing authority.

Overtime the Bond Daddies began to expand their client base to include retail investors--who were sold tax free income regardless of their tax brackets.

In the mid 1970s Congress dictated that the muni business should be cleaned up and the organization known as The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board was created.  The MSRB writes rules about what is and is not a screw job in the secondary market for municipals.

The MSRB has no enforcement power, and the SEC transferred the policing power to the NASD, but the Bond Daddies did not belong to the NASD because there was no reason to.  Essentially the chief reason a firm joins the NASD is because of an NASD rule that says that an NASD member may only grant selling concessions to other NASD members.

Well, if you're only selling muni bonds what do you care about selling concessions of mutual funds, corporate securities and so forth?  You don't--so don't join the NASD and the rules of the NASD don't apply.

That left regulating these guys to state governments, and Tennessee was very lackadaisical--some believe corrupt--and tended to look the other way.

In 1980 a guy got elected governor in Arkansas and shortly after he was inaugerated one of his biggest contributors suggested that the Bond Daddies over in Memphis might move to Little Rock if they felt their activities would be, let's say, tollerated.

That Governor, never one to miss a chance to accept a political contribution let it be known that as long as he had their support they'd have his--and most of the folks in Memphis packed up and moved a couple of hundred miles west and became the Little Rock Bond Bandits.

They're still there, making contributions as needed.

[/quote]

I thought the Bond Daddies had scattered to the four winds. Interesting!

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