Alex Berenson Quotes

If you think Wall Street has a short memory, you're dead wrong. No, the folks who work on Wall Street, regulate Wall Street - and, above all, invest in its wares, notably its hedge funds - don't have a bad memory. They don't have any memory at all.

As an investment banker, I'm in the cross-flow of information and the changes that are taking place in capital markets.

The best way to make money on Wall Street is to sell the most sophisticated [and complex] products to the most unsophisticated clients.

I don’t know why the Stock Market does what it does.

My father was an investment banker, a stock broker.

I think one problem we've had is that people who are smart and creative and innovative as engineers went into financial engineering.

The financial markets generally are unpredictable. So that one has to have different scenarios... The idea that you can actually predict what's going to happen contradicts my way of looking at the market.

Let's be honest: the trappings of investment banking are quite tempting. I do miss it sometimes. And to be honest, there was a time I'd read the 'WSJ' in the morning, and for years I have done that.

We all know that Americans love their statistics - in sport, obviously. And in finance too.

I was an economics major in college, and every summer after school, I would drive my car from California, from Claremont men's college at the time, to New York. And I worked on Wall Street.

It seemed glamorous when I used to go into work and get to be on a trading floor or see how the business worked a little bit before I ever understood what it was.

It's no secret that big institutional investors have a lot of advantages on Wall Street. They get the first chance to buy hot initial public offerings. They get to meet in person with companies' managements.

I think the association of economics with forecasting is unfortunate and is down to the fact that one great way to get an investment bank's name on business television is to hire a guy called a Chief Economist who will go and prognosticate.

It all comes down to interest rates. As an investor, all you're doing is putting up a lump-sump payment for a future cash flow.

I'm not a Wall Street expert, but I can read the papers.

Predicting the market is always tough.

You can no longer buy commodities at Merrill Lynch. My guess is many analysts and even executives are too young to know how profitable a hot commodities market can be. They will soon.

I decided I was going to go to Wall Street, and I was introduced to some people... I met a guy who knew a bond trader at Pressprich, and he got me to meet him and the guy that ran their sales department, Jack Collin.

I've always wanted to invest. That's why I started working on Wall Street in the first place, back in 1986 when I went through the Salomon Brothers training program.

What turned me on then, and turns me on even today - and when the time comes from me to retire from management I think I'd still be interested in it - is that everything that happens in the world affects the price of securities.

Employees did not only have their money in their 401k’s. They had their lives in those 401k’s ... today most people have most of their money in public stocks ... and the government regulates very little of this.

When the man who ought to want a stock doesn't want it, why should I want it?

If the country is to flourish, capital must be invested in enterprise. But those who seek to draw upon other people's money must be wholly candid regarding the facts on which the investor's judgment is asked.

There is enourmous pressure in the investment business to deliver good news. Good news sells better ….To go out there in a bubble and talk about overpriced markets is an invitation to get fired.

There’s a lot of money in making financial products whose risk few understand. Simplicity might be good for economics, but it’s lousy for Wall Street bonuses.