For most of a decade I worked for San Francisco’s Montgomery Securities (which became Banc of America Securities after a purchase). I was a securities analyst and then an institutional salesman. We called ourselves investment bankers, but no one ever asked for a definition of that title. I joined in 1986, staggered through the 1987 crash, then rode the market upward until my retirement in late 1994, just in time to miss the Great Market Uptick. My boss once told me that could have been a great salesman if I only had “more larceny in my heart.” My assignment, he more than once intoned, was “to turn my clients’ assets into my personal net worth.”
Tag: Ponzi scheme
Madoff Made Off With My Money
When a con man is caught, his victims are often too embarrassed to press charges. I’m not. But the Madoff case is so big, with so many losers, I may be far back in a very long line. Take a number.
Bernard Madoff, former chairman of NASDAQ and renown money manager whose astoundingly consistent returns over many years seemed too good to be true, confessed to a $50 billion Ponzi scheme this week.
I left investment banking in 1994, canceled my subscription to the The Wall Street Journal, and put my assets in the hands of others. Continue reading “Madoff Made Off With My Money”