People walk by a Wall Street sign
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
A career on Wall Street is full of colorful moments.
Wall Street veterans shared memorable early-career experiences during volatile events.
Some reflected on famous market crashes, another recalled hearing news of the Bernie Madoff charges.
If you listen to Jason and Travis Kelce's podcast, "New Heights," you'll know that when they have another professional football player on as a guest, they ask them what their "Welcome to the NFL" moment was.
The segment produces some funny moments, as the players often recall big hits they suffered. Former New England Patriot Rob Gronkowski, for example, got put on the ground as a rookie by teammate Vince Wilfork during a practice.
While there's a lower likelihood of being brutally tackled on the job at a bank or a hedge fund, we thought it'd be fun to pose the question to financial pros: What was their "Welcome to Wall Street" moment?
After all, a career on Wall Street is full of colorful moments. Unseen threats can suddenly throw financial markets into chaos, and strong personalities can make for memorable office dynamics.
Below, we've compiled stories from five Wall Street vets who regaled us with some of their most lasting early-career memories, which came during some of the market's most famous — and infamous — episodes.
Lehman Brothers failure
People stand next to windows above an exterior sign at the Lehman Brothers headquarters in New York in this September 16, 2008 file photo. September 14, 2009 marks the one year anniversary of the bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers. Picture taken September 16, 2008. REUTERS/Chip East/Files (UNITED STATES BUSINESS EMPLOYMENT ANNIVERSARY) - RTR27S6Z
File photo of people at Lehman Brothers headquarters in New York Thomson Reuters
Mo Haghbin, the head of strategic ETFs at ProShares, said he was managing the trading operations desk for the fixed-income hedge fund at Barclays Global Investors in 2008. He oversaw margin movement, and Lehman Brothers was one of his counterparties.
One day, payments from Lehman stopped coming in.
"Leading up to the weekend when Lehman collapsed, margin calls from our side weren't being answered. We would send money out. We would ask for money in, and we wouldn't get it," he said. "I thought it must be an administrative error. But as we all know, it's because there was a liquidity issue and they didn't have the cash to deliver."
Within a week, chaos broke out at Barclays and across the rest of Wall Street as Lehman Brothers went under.
"That weekend when everything happened, we were in the office at 4 am," Haghbin said. "They had these 'war rooms' — really crisis rooms. We spent days in that room. People were buying extra shirts and clothes rather than going home. Everyone was working 24 hours a day."
One thing in particular that Haghbin remembers about that time is how the corporate hierarchy broke down.
"It's amazing how things change in terms of visibility and seniority. There was no junior person, senior person — everybody was working on things. Managing directors working with analysts to solve problems. Titles were out the door, hierarchy out the door, everyone just trying to solve a problem."
The Bernie Madoff scandal
Bernie Madoff
Financier Bernard Madoff arrives at Manhattan Federal court on March 12, 2009 in New York City. Stephen Chernin/Getty Images
Ben McMillan, CIO at IDX Advisors, started his career as a quant at American Express, but moved to an analyst role at Lyster Watson in early 2008. While it was obviously a volatile year in markets, he said the memory that sticks out the most is when he heard Bernie Madoff was charged with defrauding investors in December 2008.
"The guy that hired me, Mark Fried, was actually one of the guys from Liar's Poker,'" he said, referencing Michael Lewis' book. "I'll never forget, I was a twenty-something analyst, and he was sitting at the Bloomberg terminal. He goes, 'Charlie, they finally got Bernie,'" talking to another portfolio manager.
McMillan said that the consensus on Wall Street at the time was that Madoff was "front running" clients, or illegally buying shares of a company that its client was about to purchase, benefitting from the subsequent upward move in the stock price. So when it was revealed that it was actually a Ponzi scheme, his colleagues didn't initially believe it.
"The fact that it was a Ponzi's team is just so outlandish that everybody assumed that the article had got it wrong," he said.
Black Monday, 1987
Trader looks at computer at the Pacific Stock Exchange in Los Angeles on Black Monday 1987
A trader looks at a computer at the Pacific Stock Exchange in Los Angeles on Black Monday, 1987. Lennox McLendon/AP
David Rosenberg's "Welcome to Wall Street" moment came quick — like first day on the job quick.
It was October 19, 1987, otherwise known as "Black Monday," when the S&P 500 fell 20% in a day. Rosenberg had just started his job as an economist at the Bank of Nova Scotia.
"My career was born into a complete state of mayhem," Rosenberg said. "It was a day of anxiety taken to an extreme — nothing I saw again until the Great Financial Crisis."
Rosenberg said the experience taught him the value that economists can provide to traders and investors, especially during volatile times.
"I followed the chief economist and assistant chief economist around all day, through the trading room and up to the executive offices, armed with charts and talking about liquidity, the economy, and how it all related to markets. They were trying to convince everyone the sky wasn't falling and there wouldn't be a destabilizing depression — and let me tell you, that day was frightening," he said.
"The term 'cool economist' wasn't an oxymoron — my two superiors were cool as cucumbers while everyone else ran around like a chicken with its head cut off," he continued. "I learned early that the role of the economist is to provide stability to traders, salespeople, and management when things are incredibly unstable."
1998 Russian credit default
This photograph taken on April 12, 2023, shows Russian national flag is pictured atop the Russian Central Bank headquarters in downtown Moscow.
This photograph taken on April 12, 2023, shows Russian national flag is pictured atop the Russian Central Bank headquarters in downtown Moscow. Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP
Que Nguyen, CIO of equity strategies at Research Affiliates, had just started working at Morgan Stanley Investment Management as a VP in 1998 when Russia defaulted on its debt. The event sent the S&P 500 plummeting by 15%.
"All of a sudden, Russia came out with a massive debt default, and at the time a lot of people were highly levered," Nguyen said.
She continued: "Wall Street firms were thinking about having rifts, people's bonuses were being cut, and that was when bonuses were such a big part of compenstation."
In the grand scheme of things, Nguyen said the event didn't matter much, as it was dwarfed in significance by subsequent crises. It taught her that not every spell of uncertainty will have serious long-term implications for US investors.
"It turned out to be such a small blip relative to the dot-com crash, relative to the Great Financial Crisis, and even relative to COVID," she said. "The big takeaway from that moment for me was that there are markets that matter and markets that don't matter. The market that matters is the US."
Brexit
FILE PHOTO: A woman waves a British flag on Brexit day in London, Britain January 31, 2020. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
Britain leaves EU on Brexit day Reuters
John Pease, a member of the asset allocation team at GMO, had his moment come a bit later than the others': It was the morning of the Brexit vote in June 2016. The pound fell 10% in a matter of days on the news that The UK was leaving the European Union.
He said the time difference from the UK had him up at irregular hours.
"You are awake until the early hours of the morning watching asset prices, thinking about what is changing fundamentally, whether there are opportunities showing up, trying to invest well at a time when people are either buying or selling without paying too much attention to price," Pease said.
Pease said the episode taught him that opportunities arise when volatility spikes.
"That was the first time I saw true panic — and the opportunities that come about with true panic," he said.
Recommended video