Beware, as Belfort uses the word fuck in the youtube presentation linked.
"Wolf of Wall Street" review
- Thread starter Maverick74
- Start date
Beware, as Belfort uses the word fuck in the youtube presentation linked.
People should invest on their own through a discount broker. Why would anyone trust a broker, especially one from a boiler room. I guess the world needs stupid people so that someone else can get rich.
Discount brokers weren't really around back then or it wasnt the norm and you got your quotes from a quotron, no internet.
This is how they did it.. it was a numbers game. You had a football field size boardroom with hundreds of cold callers calling 400 dials a day, hitting 40 people and getting 10 solid leads daily not just one guy but a hundred of them. They would turn it over to an army of account openers who would relentlessly call these leads and try to open up on 200 Kmart or 100 Georgia pacific...get it. Some of these clients had 2 or 4 mill in the mkt, so they'd open an account just to get you off the phone. Then once accounts were opened on blue chip stocks the brokers would flip them into house stocks for size, always getting around the No's while harping on the greed button. It wasn't like these guys had clients for years, they just had tons of them coming from the bottom up.
By and large quite a good description of the reality. A numbers game ... dialing for dollars. They like to bring some money -- even if it is small -- into the house with a stock that is a household name that way all the account opening BS is behind them when it is time to sell them a huge markup POS. It was essentially the same story in the 50's when Canadian boiler rooms sold mining companies into the US retail. The past 10 years has been dominated by six and eight page direct mail pieces to huge lists. The spend is about $700,000 to bring in about $3,500,000 if it's done right. People buy through their own brokers but it all originates in their box. The stock is boxed meaning virtually all the free trading shares are controlled by a single group. Get on the penny stock mailing lists or low priced minning shares list and you'll see the mailing pieces. Expensive four color printing with amazingly well targeted copy. I think the direct mail era has about had its run and is on the decline but hundreds of millions of dollars were made while it roared.
LOL...reminds me of a story a friend told me.
He was trading and living in Australia, working for Merrill (I think) and the time and rang up the Goldman desk in New York to query a fill he was given on an ADR trade.
Q: why was my fill 10c over the posted high of the day?
A: I am looking at it it all looks good here. Nothing is the problem, thats where it traded, your prices must be incorrect. Our high shows the accurate price.
Q...I am looking at my Bloomberg and I cannot fathom why my hedge trade price was done there?
(Without holding down the mute button on his phone the guy in NY said to his colleague in a thick NY accent - "Hey this guys got a Bloomberg, do you think we should give him a proper price")
My friend overheard all this and got the answer back.....
A: "Hey sure buddy, sorry about that must have been a typo by some back office clerk we will fix that wont happen again"
Quote from hayman:
I saw the movie a couple of days ago, since I typically love "Wall Street" type movies.
Overall, I found it amusing and entertaining, and on a Netflix scale of 0 to 5, I'd give it a 3.9.
Living on Long Island, and remembering the news exposure of Stratton Oakmont, it brought back the memories of Wall Street indulgence and reminded me of the 1980's, late 1990's, and to an extent, 2013. Some funny scenes, and it glorified Wall Street for what it really is - excesses, make money at all costs, fleece the individual investor, hyped-up insider trading type IPO's, etc.
I really liked DiCapria, as he was the perfect guy for the lead role. I didn't like Jonah Hill as much in his role.
I found myself consistently looking at my watch at about 2:15 onward, into the movie. It was way too long, and the same points emphasized again and again. To think that the original movie was 4 hours before they cut out scenes, is totally ridiculous.
I didn't take my wife or daughters to see it, as there is excessive language and nudity. I tried to tune those parts out -. I saw it for $ 5.50 in a matinee; wouldn't have paid $ 11 to see it, and would have waited for it to come out on Netflix at that price.
IMO, "Wall Street" (Sheen and Douglas) was a MUCH better movie.
just saw the movie. going in i had little expectations of anything good; boy was i surprised!
thank God i did not bring my 13 yr old son though. found myself laughing out loud countless times; absolutely loved the movie.
one point and its not a justification of what they did..but there was greed on both sides of the transactions..just sayin.
looking forward to seeing it on the small screen again.