Todd Harrison: “The Usual Valuation Metrics No Longer Work”

The conversation I have for you today is with Todd Harrison.

Todd is an incredible character, a 20-year Wall Street veteran who’s worked multiple roles in finance, beginning at Morgan Stanley’s worldwide equity derivative desk where he built the financial services and biotech “books” into multimillion dollar profit centres. Most likely a factor leading to his being promoted to vice president at the tender age of 26, the youngest in the firm at the time.

Todd then went on to join Galleon Group as Managing Director of derivatives, where the fund grew from $500m to $6b during the 3 years he was with Galleon.

Todd then joined the $400m hedge fund Cramer Berkowitz LLC as president and head of trading in 2000 where he managed 200 positions through the tech bubble and bust, interfaced with research analysts and had sole responsibility for an annual $90 million commission structure.

He is founder and CEO of Minyanville Media and his flagship website is Minyanville. He’s appeared on FOX, CNBC, CNN and his articles are published in The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Fortune and Barron’s.  He’s also an Emmy Award winner for his animated business news show “Minyanviille’s World in Review.”

Todd’s also the author of “The Other Side of Wall Street:  In Business It Pays to Be an Animal, In Life It Pays to Be Yourself”.

During our conversation Todd and I covered:

  • Why in the GFC the Fed “bought the cancer and sold the car crash”.
  • The velocity of information is outstripping the velocity of money and what this means for algo driven markets which act in real time while policy makers take time.
  • Todd’s trade of the decade and his current largest position. I guarantee it’ll surprise you.
  • And much more.

Direct download link (right-click and choose “Save As”)

Or – if you prefer to read rather than listen – you can read the podcast transcript below (or download it here).

I’m always looking to make these conversations more interesting so please tell me how I can make the podcasts better here.

Enjoy!

– Chris

“Good traders know how to make money but great traders know how to take a loss. For if there wasn’t risk in this profession, it would be called winning rather than trading.” — Todd Harrison

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