Strip Clubs Go Vertical on Wall Street: Michael Lewis (Correct) By Michael Lewis (Commentary. Michael Lewis, whose books include ``Next: The Future Just Happened'' and ``Liar's Poker,'' is a columnist for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own. Corrects spelling of principal in third paragraph.) Berkeley, California, Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- An alert reader recently spotted an unusual ad while watching CNBC on cable in New York. In broad daylight, in between Maria Bartiromo's energetic stock market reports, a busty woman from a strip joint called the VIP Club appeared on the screen to invite viewers to see what she looked like with her shirt off. My first reaction was to lump the commercial with NBC's decision to accept the first liquor ads in 40 years as another example of moral decay in the face of slowing ad sales. Boom times may encourage people to indulge their animal passions but busts lead to more systematic, corporate forms of moral compromise. But it turns out corporate morality isn't the story here, or, at least, not the principal story. A CNBC spokesman said the financial news channel didn't sell the strip club the ad slot and would contact the debt-laden alternative cable operator RCN Corp. to have it removed. The principal story was who still thought it worthwhile to buy ads on CNBC: a strip joint. Even in bad times -- maybe especially in bad times -- there remains some kind of synergy between naked female flesh and raw stock quotes. The same sort of people who want to hear the latest stock market news are more than typically keen to pay to see women dancing luridly -- or so the buyers of the ad must have thought. As a group, the ad implied, the Wall Street people who watch financial television have more of a taste than most for stuffing bank notes into other people's underwear. Money and Lust And they are, as we all know, right. Sexual harassment laws and fully dressed females working on trading floors may have de- sexualized the Wall Street workplace, but they have had little effect on the Wall Street male's tastes in entertainment. Maybe it's simply that the Wall Street male suffers from higher than average levels of testosterone. Or maybe Wall Street work attracts men who long to see something, anything, move up and down. Or maybe it's simply that chasing money all day leaves you coarse and lusty at night. Whatever the reason, even the new male dogs on Wall Street prefer the old tricks. About the same time the ad appeared, an Internet financial tip sheet called JagNotes.com Inc., badly in need of funding, announced it was in talks to sell a controlling interest to Go West Entertainment. Go West is the holding company for Scores, the strip club of choice for, as they say, the discerning Manhattan gentleman. In a bizarre financial twist, the gyrations of Scores strippers would have subsidized the market commentary of Elaine Garzarelli. But the deal fell apart this month when Go West announced it wouldn't go through with the purchase. Go-Go PaineWebber? We know how Wall Street people feel about strip joints. What I wonder is how Strip Joint people feel about Wall Street. Does a financial web site, to a strip joint owner, simply represent vertical integration, an opportunity to claw his way even more deeply into the lives of his customers? Or is this interest in the financial markets some kind of global power play? After years of watching Wall Street guys lord it over their ladies, are strip club owners now making their own move? Is there perhaps some strip club owner out there who envisions a future dotted with giant corporations with names like Scores-Citigroup and Go-Go PaineWebber? Will ``thank you PaineWebber'' come to have exciting new connotations? If so, now is his moment. Anyone who has money to spend on ads on CNBC (which by the way competes with Bloomberg's own television channel) and on financial web sites clearly has money to burn. Everywhere you turn waiters and bellhops and even investment bankers are being laid off, and yet the owners of strip joints are flush. How will they use this new relative strength? The woman I spoke with at the VIP Club in Manhattan sounded coy, and would only say, ``We thought those ads only ran after a certain hour at night.'' When I asked to speak to the man in charge, she said she didn't know when he would return because he was ``at the bank.'' But of course he was!
That's what I thought too, Candle. Especially when I started with a prop firm here in San Diego, I thought I was all set. When a women here asks what I do for a living I proudly announce that I trade stock, and every time I receive a confused, blank stare followed by a "hmm". San Diego has some of the most beautiful women in the country, but they just aren't impressed with traders. Either they don't get it, or I don't get it? Some help here....
The nice women are in institutional sales in banks there they get to use their good interpersonal skills and many are fine women traders are few and far between and are far too stressed out to bother with.
Just like most software engineering jobs. Very few hot or semi-hot chic exist at all. I guess if they are hot why bother doing the hard work.
Bud Fox, still around ? I thought u wanted to be removed? crazy trader, you're right, hot chicks don't need to use their brains or think they don't at least.
<i>When a woman here asks what I do for a living I proudly announce that I trade stock, and every time I receive a confused, blank stare followed by a "hmm".</i> It's the same here in Florida. Most people just don't get it. Maybe next time try, "I make money in the stock market."
I miss seeing these commercials on TV. They used to play in San Diego all the time on CNBC http://www.princetondaytrading.com/PrinceDaytrading.html click on the left hand side and see TV ads Robert
They are not attracted to traders guys, especially "daytraders" I think it's better to avoid the subject altogether
I think, by nature, women tend to be more of an investor (long term) than a trader. They like to marry to things... you know what I mean.... However, like Candle mentionned, there are some who date trade.... but then, those don't (need to) pull the dough out of the market, but rather of their dates. (and having wrinkles on the face due to trading stress?? No way !!!)