Bin Laden's Death and the Stock Market - 05/02/11

 

While I believe that Bin Laden's death has no market impact whatsoever; it has a far deeper personal impact.

 

For me, yesterday's announcement by President Obama that Bin Laden had been killed has no market impact whatsoever, as the economic and market challenges still remain directly in front of us.

While I respect the emotional context, I don't buy the clarion call to "buy America," as suggested by Warren Buffett (on CNBC this morning) and by others in the media, including our very own "Dandy" Dan Dicker "The Stockpicker."

It can be argued that Bin Laden's death is a punctuation mark but not a period or finality that many suggest and hope for, as, unfortunately, geopolitical risk has been heightened in the last few years. The tentacles of terrorism have grown ever wider and its web has grown ever more sophisticated.

Instead, to me, Bin Laden's death is a comma -- a chapter has been closed, but the book on terrorism remains open.

I do not believe that we are any safer from terrorism today than we were on Sunday morning.

For me, yesterday's announcement has a far deeper impact -- it closes a personal chapter for the many victims and families of those victims of the terrible event on September 11, 2001.

I was on a cruise in the Mediterranean Sea when I learned of the World Trade Center tragedy 10 years ago this September.

Among those lost was my best friend, Chuck Zion.

Chuck was a legendary figure at Cantor Fitzgerald, the firm that lost nearly 700 employees. It was the hardest-hit company in the World Trade Center tragedy, accounting for nearly one-quarter of the building's deaths that day.

I lost many friends at Cantor on Sept. 11: Eric, Pat, Timmy -- too many to count. So did many others. And of course, we all lost one of RealMoney's own, Bill "Budman" Meehan. I will never ever forget Jim "El Capitan" Cramer's words of love in memory of Bill Meehan on this day; Jim's shout out of Bill Meehan's name at Temple during Rosh Hashanah brings me to tears.

My tears are again falling as I write this post. Similar to many, we didn't know if Chuck was dead or alive in the days following the disaster. About four days after the incident, I finally got through on a telephone call to Chuck's dad, Rabbi Martin Zion, who told me that he watched his son die as the office building fell around him like a shroud.

In Cantor Fitzgerald's equity division, none had more of a presence (literally and figuratively) than Chuck.

Chuck was known to his friends and clients as the Brown Bear, a sensitive, giving and caring friend, father to Zach, son to Martin and Jane, and husband to the amazing Carole (Cheezy). His love was pure, and there was never any pretense -- not wordy, he was on point.

Zion is the hill in Jerusalem and the site of Solomon's temple. The largest producer over the past decade at Cantor Fitzgerald, Chuck was master of his universe. He was straightforward and clear-cut, a no-nonsense and respected partner who was remarkably generous but never, ever wanted others to know it. He gave often and substantially but always anonymously, without strings attached.

Chuck, who also worked at Salomon Brothers and Sanford C. Bernstein, put on some of the largest trades in the history of the equities market. He was the player the "big boys" went to when they wanted anonymity. And I am talking multimillion-share trades, the really big prints. And it was Chuck who introduced me to Bill Meehan -- he even had me fill in for Budman on a few occasions in the Cantor Daily News (which still exists).

I cherished and loved Chuck Zion -- he was my confidant and a brother that I never had. When I moved to Florida in the late 1990s, Chuck introduced me to his father and mother, asking me to take them out once or twice a year, to look after them a bit. In time, Rabbi Zion and Jane became more than casual dinner mates; they became my mother and father. So, Chuck and I were literally brothers (though absent the same blood).

I spoke to Chuck every morning at around 6:15 a.m. If I didn't call him on my direct line to Cantor's trading desk by 6:20, he'd get angry and yell at me in no uncertain terms! Invariably, legendary money managers Neil Weissman, Stanley Shopkorn, Dan Tisch or Phil Marber (Cantor's head of equities) would interrupt our daily calls. He would take their calls, and then shortly, Chuck would call me back.

We rarely talked about the stock market, preferring to talk sports and food (his favorite activity!). Sometimes Chuck would tell me to check out Maureen Dowd's editorial piece in The New York Times ("Dougie, she is mandatory reading") or who was on Imus that morning. I got him to buy a couple of harness horses with me for fun, and he got a kick out of them as we followed their losing races. "We'll get him next time," he would say (his credo) -- though we never did!

We played golf together (Chuck wrote the word "Lost" on each of his golf balls because he lost so many of them that he wanted the other players to know they were his), usually with Phil Marber (who ultimately became Cantor Fitzgerald's CEO) or ace trader Andy Smoller. We talked NCAA football and basketball, especially about Syracuse University's teams (his alma mater). But mostly we talked about our children.

The Friday before Sept. 11 was my last day in the office, as I was leaving for Europe for 10 days. That day we spent a lot of time talking about his son Zack, reminiscing about the trip Zack and I had recently taken to New Haven to Yale University, where he watched me lecture at Dr. Robert Schiller's class on short-selling.

Chuck was so proud of the way in which Zack (who now is almost a college graduate) had become a man. And he was nervously awaiting Greenwich High's football season with such anticipation. (They had won the state title the previous year, with Zack playing the offensive line.) Every time he talked about the upcoming season, his voice would rise by several decibels. He was the proudest father on the face of the Earth.

That Friday morning, the last day I spoke to Chuck, I was playing a Grateful Dead song in the background, and I had Chuck on the speaker. Chuck was never what I would call "into" music. He was certainly not a fan of the Grateful Dead -- maybe Motown but not the Grateful Dead. Surprisingly, in our early morning talk, Chuck remarked how beautiful the song was. The song was "Box of Rain."

And as I reflect on the death of Bin Laden, we are all reminded today of the passing of other loved ones in 2011, I can't help but to think back to the opening and closing lines of that song (passages that I repeated in my eulogy at Chuck's funeral) and that I played to Chuck that morning, which eerily relate to what would happen four days later on Sept. 11.

Walk out of any doorway
Feel your way, feel your way
Like the day before.
Maybe you'll find direction

Around some corner
Where it's been waiting to meet you
What do you want me to do
To watch for you while you're sleeping?
Well, please don't be surprised when you find me dreaming too.
It's just a box of rain
I don't know who put it there
Believe it if you need it
Or leave it if you dare
But it's just a box of rain
Or a ribbon for your hair
Such a long, long time to be gone
And a short time to be there.

-- Grateful Dead, "Box of Rain"

It's all a dream we dreamed one morning long ago.

Sleep well, my brother. Sleep well, Brown Bear.

We finally got the bastard.