The Buy Side (20 page)

Each day I buy as much as I can. I don’t want to show the pair of aces I have in the hole, so I call a few of the bigger bulge bracket firms to see what’s going on with the stock. I don’t tell them if I’m a buyer or seller. I just want to get a feel for the market. I buy in small increments on the machine, Instinet, so as not to move the stock too much. I also try to find a natural seller, so we can just cross stock without drawing attention. But I don’t have any luck.

It takes me close to two weeks to secure our full position, about three or four hundred thousand shares for each stock. Then I call two of my fellow Healthcare Mafia members and tell them to meet me at a place called Mexican Radio after work. They know what this means:
I have information they’ll want to hear. I’m not just being a nice guy. I know if I help them, and make them look good in front of their bosses, they’ll owe me. I also want them to create buy interest in the stocks when the time is right.

When I walk into Mexican Radio, they’re sitting at the bar. Roger works at a billion-dollar macro fund that trades a lot of healthcare, and Trevor is at a multibillion-dollar healthcare fund. The protocol for our Mafia meetings is to never start with business. We spend the first half hour drinking margaritas and discussing the usual bullshit: What’s new? How’s work? Any new chicks? That kind of stuff. Once the warm-up is out of the way, I tell them about the staffing call we have, which companies are involved, and how much we think the stocks will rise. We suck down a few more Shortwaves, the signature margarita at the Radio, smoke a few cigarettes, and then head home for the night.

Over the next two days, the stocks continue to rise; my allies have clearly convinced their portfolio managers to buy. I then let the story out to a few more hedge fund traders I know. Now the stocks are really starting to move. By then, we’ve already made a significant amount of money. So much so, the prudent move might be to get out. But Vivek tells us the stocks still look cheap and should go higher. We wait.

By the time the staffing companies release the news about the new trend, the stocks are up over 10 percent on the day, a huge move in the premarket. The short interest (the outstanding shares that are shorted) is high, as a lot of hedge funds had a negative view on the sector before this morning’s news. I wait for the opening bell as the stocks continue to climb, now up nearly 15 percent. It’s time for me to go to work.

I call five brokers on the Street: Goldman, Morgan, Merrill, Citi, and Credit Suisse–First Boston. Though I want to sell, I don’t want
the Street to know that yet. So I tell the big five that I have a large buy I need to make in the staffing sector. I act like I’m losing money, tripping over my words. It’s a hand I can’t overplay. I’m not dealing with idiots (well, maybe one or two of them are). But I’ve seen plenty of traders in this situation for real—I’ve been there myself. I know how to make it sound believable. They tell me they have to call me back. I know as soon as they hang up the phone they’ll be screaming that they have a large buyer for all staffing company stocks across their trading floor. Then all of their coworkers will start to make outgoing calls with the same information. Meanwhile, I’m at my desk getting my sell tickets ready. Each return call I get is about the same: “Sorry, nothing for sale.” And by now, the sell side firms have told most of their accounts that they have a large buyer of my stocks. The entire mood has changed. The smart money is buying, and everybody wants in. Perception becomes reality. I do run the risk that someone might find a seller and I’ll get a call offering me a shitload of stock, but I’ll deal with that if it happens. It doesn’t.

By the end of the day the stocks are up nearly 30 percent. I give Gus a call to sell some of our positions, not only to throw Turbo a few poker chips, but because I want to use someone who wasn’t involved at all. The longer I keep my identity as a seller from the Street the better the stocks will continue to perform. But I can only keep it secret for so long, and over the next two days I sell off the remainder of the stocks until we’re flat. In the end, Argus is nearly seven million dollars richer. Not bad for three weeks’ work.

In the office, most of the credit goes to Vivek, for coming up with the idea in the first place. That’s fine with me. I’m not looking for applause. I’m looking toward bonus time, and my million-dollar goal. That night I’m at the Radio again with Roger and Trevor. “Nice trade, my man,” says Trevor. I nod and order a Patrón Silver on the rocks
with three limes. “Any new chicks?” I ask. There’s nothing more about the staffing deal to say. We all know what we made, and what is owed. After a few laughs and another round, Roger asks for the check. I watch them walk out the door and then I order another Patrón. On the bar, my cell buzzes. I look at the text. It’s from Randy. “Come over,” it says.

BY THE
spring of 2003, Argus Partners assets under management exceed the one-billion-dollar mark and we continue to grow. It’s as if we’re printing money. We’re up, so we press. As we make more money, our bets get bigger. Galleon healthcare is a distant memory. When the Street thinks about healthcare, they think about Argus. When the Street thinks about trading healthcare, they think of me.

You really don’t see it coming, the change. It’s not like you get a memo or a tap on the shoulder from your boss telling you you’re relevant now. No, you just wake up and your entire world is different. You’re on every guest list, the tab is always picked up, and you’re invited everywhere by your new “best” friends. I’m not saying it isn’t exciting—it is. I sat on the fifty-yard line at last year’s Super Bowl, one of the greatest ever played. The Patriots, a two-touchdown underdog, beat the Rams in overtime on Adam Vinatieri’s field goal; I had even better seats at the double-overtime championship game the Miami Hurricanes and
Ohio State Buckeyes played in Tempe; I went to the Sundance Film Festival. There, I stayed in a seven-bedroom chalet on the ski mountain. I’ve taken helicopters to the Hamptons, and private jets to Vegas.

Although things are great, I feel like something is missing. I wonder what Lily is doing. The main reason I don’t ever get serious with women is because I hate the breakup. Anything after a few dates requires “the talk,” and I hate the talk. When I called her, we didn’t make plans to meet again. We just said good night. The phone calls back and forth started to become further and further apart, with no plans being made. One day the calls just stopped coming and she faded to the background. I’m not sure if I left her in my wake or she left me in hers. I guess it doesn’t really matter. I think I miss my old life. Because of business dinners and spending too much time with Randy and James at the White House, I rarely spend time with my roommates anymore. Before I started working on the buy side, Jason and I were always out together. We had a schedule: on Wednesdays it was Gentleman Jacks on the Upper West Side, Thursdays we went to Dakota on the Upper East Side, and Friday and Saturday we’d bar hop and always end up at Red Rock West. We also had our own bar routines. Sometimes we’d start with the invisible double Dutch move. We’d clear a circle and get two guys to pretend to be turning the ropes as we jumped. Or we’d do our Annie bit. We’d get on our hands and knees, pretend to scrub the floors, and sing “It’s a Hard Knock Life.” We were a team, like Bert and Ernie, Butch and Sundance, or Laverne and Shirley. We’d been performing together for so long, we no longer had to rehearse our lines. It all came naturally. I might be talking with a girl and Jason would interrupt and say, “Oh, Turney, I forgot to tell you, your agent called this afternoon.” Then he’d just walk away. From there, I could tell any lie I wanted. I could be an actor, an artist, or a writer. But rarely a Wall Street trader.

But one day I get a phone call from a guy named Drew and I see an opportunity to bring Jason back into my social life. Drew acts like he knows me, but I’ve never met him. He explains he’s the head of trading at Susquehanna, a Philadelphia-based firm that recently made a push into sales and trading, the customer facilitation business. Drew invites me to South Beach for the weekend with a bunch of their guys from Philly and some of their clients from New York. He tells me they’re renting a jet, a BBJ 737. The BBJ doesn’t really mean anything to me—it sounds like part of a personal ad on Craigslist—but the 737 tells me it’s big, real big. I say I’ll go, and I’m just about to hang up when a thought comes to me. Would it be okay to bring a new hire on the trip? I ask. When I tell my roommate Jason we’re going to South Beach on a private jet, we’re staying in a sweet hotel, and everything’s paid for, he screams like a schoolgirl. There’s just one catch, I say. “You gotta pretend you’re my trading assistant.”

That Friday, Jason walks into the apartment with an exaggerated shoulder swing. With each step he takes, he thrusts forward his hips and pouts his lips. “Dude!” I say.

“This is my trader walk,” he explains. When he asks what he should wear, I tell him a button-down shirt and khaki pants. Fifteen minutes later he comes down doing the same exaggerated walk but now pulling his Tumi bag on wheels behind him. He looks like a flight attendant on the catwalk. He’s wearing a blue button-down and khakis, though. He looks at me and notices I have on tattered shorts, flip-flops, and a white T-shirt. “Why are you wearin’ that and I’m wearin this?” he asks. “Because you’re dressed like someone who works on Wall Street,” I say, “and, well, I’m not.”

On the ride to the Westchester airport I try to brief him on the ins and outs of what to say and, more important, what not to say. “What’s
the name of the firm again? Sushsquash?” he asks. I hold my head in my hands.

“Susquehanna,” I say. “Write it on your hand if you have to.”

The car service drives us right out onto the tarmac. The only thing missing is a red carpet. A Boeing jet this size, at least one outfitted for commercial use, seats at least a hundred and fifty. But inside the plane, there are only twenty or so guys—each dressed exactly like Jason with their blue button-downs and tan pants. I hear the pop from a bottle of champagne being opened. Then another. The comfortably spaced seats in the back of the plane are full, so we find a spot up front. The leather chairs recline. There’s a couch and a coffee table. An oriental rug covers the floor, and recessed lighting gives the space a muted glow. The kitchen galley looks bigger than most apartments in New York City. A flat-screen TV is lowered from the ceiling. Before we even sit we’re offered a cocktail. I almost forget we’re on a plane. It’s like a gentlemen’s club with wings. Jason and I settle in and sip our beers. The pretty blond flight attendant smiles at us and then begins the instructions for takeoff.

“I love stock trading!” Jason shouts.

After we reach our cruising altitude, I meet Drew. He looks exactly how I thought he might, like any number of Wall Street brokers: brown hair, forty-something, ex-athlete. Probably has a seven handicap on his home course but plays to a fourteen anywhere else. His smile is part salesman and part aging frat boy. He’s a little buzzed. But he still has the amped-up demeanor of every sales manager I’ve known since the days I was interviewing for my first job on Wall Street. “How are you?” he says as he glad-hands me. “Excited for the weekend?” He spends the next few minutes telling me how great I am. “You have a terrific feel for the market,” he says at one point.

“Terrific feel,” Jason agrees.

In Miami, we’re booked in the Delano, one of the first art deco landmarks in South Beach to be restored to its original glory. Staying there makes you feel like a 1940s movie star. Perfect. We have reservations at a hot new restaurant for tonight.

When we arrive for dinner, I steer Jason to the end of the table. This way, I figure, we can avoid as much business talk as possible. But there’s no keeping Jason quiet, and after a few cocktails he begins telling stories, and all of them are about me. Jason is funny, a good storyteller, and his audience of brokers are enjoying themselves. He’s starting to sound more like a friend than an assistant. I’m getting nervous. Then he tells his favorite story, about how after a big night I woke up in my bed and found it filled with hay. “I think he got down with one of the horses in Central Park!” Jason exclaims to peals of laughter. I laugh and then excuse myself, and head outside to smoke. It’s time to stop the Turney stories before Jason blows his cover.

In front of the restaurant, I see Sam, one of the Susquehanna clients, talking on his cell phone. He smiles at me, then turns his back and continues talking in a hushed tone. I’d noticed him texting throughout dinner. I light a cigarette. Sam now is off his phone. There’s something about his body language, his expression, that sends me a signal. “Nice night,” he says. I nod. We stand there for a moment in silence, looking out at the decorative palms and expensive cars that pass on Pennsylvania Avenue and sharing the uneasy bond of strangers who have something unsaid in common. I flick my cigarette out into the drive in front of the restaurant. “Anybody party on this trip?” I ask. He looks at me with the smile of an old friend.