Known as "the Einstein of Wall Street," Peter Tuchman is one of the most famous traders on the New York Stock Exchange. He showed us why coming to the floor of the NYSE still gives traders an edge over people working from home.
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00:00 Heads is the bull and tails is the bear.
00:02 And tails is the bear.
00:03 Yeah.
00:04 Tails, you're going to show us your trading desk.
00:08 Let's go.
00:09 Peter Tuchman is one of the most famous traders
00:12 on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
00:14 He's known as the Einstein of Wall Street.
00:18 And not just because of his looks.
00:20 The excitement, the adrenaline.
00:22 We are the last human marketplace in the world.
00:25 So what's important is...
00:26 He showed us why coming to the floor
00:29 still gives traders like him
00:31 an edge over people trading from home.
00:33 How you doing?
00:37 Good.
00:38 So this is me.
00:42 This is my spot.
00:43 So I'll give you a little breakdown of what we do here.
00:46 This character was done to me back about seven years ago.
00:49 It's become my brand.
00:51 Your first time that you came on this floor
00:54 and you stood here,
00:55 do you remember the emotion that you felt?
00:57 And what was it?
00:58 100%.
00:59 I came on the floor.
01:00 I had gotten a summer job.
01:01 I was working under the podium there.
01:03 It was a bit of fear and excitement,
01:05 but the adrenaline came out and it was roaring.
01:08 And I just said,
01:09 "I found where I want to spend the rest of my life."
01:11 I've got to be more clear.
01:14 You guys all right?
01:15 I've been doing this for 40 years.
01:18 In 1985, when I started here,
01:20 I was a teletypist.
01:21 I went on to be a clerk.
01:23 And my goal was to become a broker,
01:25 basically a trader.
01:27 I still get butterflies in my stomach every morning
01:30 when I come into work.
01:31 It's like being in the Super Bowl.
01:33 We are more relevant now than ever
01:35 as brokers on the floor of the stock exchange
01:37 because the more technology you use,
01:39 people tend to get detached from the reality
01:41 of the human part of the market.
01:43 But the human element here is what made this place.
01:45 I have a trading strategy,
01:50 which I trade on the close around the imbalances
01:53 that only come to the floor of the stock exchange.
01:55 That's one of the reasons I'm here every day,
01:57 because what we do and I do down here
01:59 cannot be done off floor.
02:02 And so I take that information,
02:04 I analyze it, and I convey it to the customers
02:06 in a compliant way so that they're able
02:08 to have some kind of an edge to trade the marketplace.
02:10 - There came a wave of selling
02:12 that sent the 2,000 men on the floor
02:14 of the New York Stock Exchange scurrying.
02:16 - In the old days, during open outcry
02:18 on the floor of the stock exchange,
02:20 when there were thousands of people down here
02:22 trading and screaming and yelling,
02:23 if there was ever a discrepancy
02:25 or an argument around a trade,
02:26 you called in a governor,
02:27 and a governor had what's called a flipping coin.
02:30 Whether it was a $10 problem, a million dollar problem,
02:33 or whatever it was, you had to flip the coin
02:36 and you had to live by the solution.
02:37 So I've had this in my pocket for a long time,
02:39 for 37 years.
02:40 Is it reversing?
02:43 No, market's getting smacked.
02:45 - How did you survive it for decades?
02:47 How did you last?
02:49 - I've had to reinvent myself many times.
02:51 I've had to sort of bob and weave.
02:53 I had to be flexible.
02:55 A lot of the people who I started out here with
02:57 are no longer here.
02:59 Either they retired,
03:00 or they were not able to reinvent themselves.
03:02 There's been a huge transition over the years
03:06 of what a floor trader does.
03:08 We're standing in a place that in 1650,
03:12 they were trading stocks outside under the Buttonwood tree.
03:15 In 1903, they built this building.
03:18 We need to acknowledge that every industry
03:20 has been outsourced a little bit by technology.
03:23 We still have a plethora of human beings here.
03:26 - What is the most problematic emotion
03:32 that you deal with when you are trading?
03:35 - Obviously fear, right?
03:36 The greatest emotion of all.
03:38 One of the biggest problems that day traders have
03:41 is they get emotional about money.
03:43 They get emotional about a trade, but it's money.
03:45 You make it, you lose it.
03:48 - What was the biggest failure
03:50 that you learned the most from?
03:52 - In 2006, I literally spent two years
03:56 not making any money.
03:58 The market was going into a rough time.
04:00 And so for me, it was really a struggle
04:03 to find customers, to find business.
04:05 We were also going into a bit of a transition
04:07 with technology entering into the marketplace.
04:10 You really had to go out there and fight for the business.
04:13 And yet I got up every morning,
04:15 I knew opportunity was not gonna find me,
04:17 you know, cowering at home in bed,
04:19 feeling sorry for myself.
04:21 I figured one day things are going to turn.
04:23 And in fact, they did.
04:24 - Did you ever have doubt that you weren't gonna make it?
04:27 - Oh, absolutely.
04:28 My parents are Holocaust survivors.
04:30 They found each other, fell in love and came to America
04:33 and got their American dream.
04:35 So they were two people that really woke up with gratitude.
04:39 You know, you can live in fear or you can live in faith
04:42 and you can live in victim mode
04:44 or you can live in gratitude.
04:46 (gentle music)
04:48 - What is your favorite indicator or indicators on a chart?
04:52 - Well, first of all, I'll tell you that the S&P 500
04:55 for me is the most exciting indices.
04:58 It is a basket of 500 stocks.
05:00 It really sort of tracks the movement of the market
05:03 and the economy and the globe.
05:04 And so I love that.
05:06 There are multiple indices that are super important,
05:08 whether it's exponential moving averages,
05:10 whether it's pivot points,
05:11 whether it's the RSI, Relative Strength Index,
05:14 you have to look at all of them together.
05:16 I would say moving averages and the RSI
05:18 are the most important because they basically are the market.
05:21 They represent support and resistance.
05:23 They represent oversold and overbought conditions.
05:25 So as a day trader, for those who day trade,
05:28 that is the necessity to identify that,
05:31 to really get your most out of a trade.
05:33 My advice to day traders is don't make decisions
05:37 based on economic data and earnings.
05:39 Don't trade on FOMO and hype.
05:42 (upbeat music)
05:44 - Who's Peter Tuchman outside of the trading floor?
05:46 - I used to run a record store in 1980.
05:49 Jazz was a big part of my world.
05:50 I was also in the food business.
05:52 I had a hot sauce company back in the '90s.
05:54 Art is a big passion.
05:56 I love to inspire and mentor young artists as well.
05:58 You know, I don't sleep that much.
06:00 I am the ambassador of the Stock Exchange in so many ways.
06:03 This is my home.
06:04 I eat, drink, sleep, the stock market.
06:06 And so I'm glad we could let you in.
06:08 (upbeat music)
06:10 (man shouting)
06:13 - Boom!
06:15 (upbeat music)
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06:25 (upbeat music)
06:28 (upbeat music)
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