The Wall Street Shuffle Story

The Wall Street Shuffle is much more than just another talk show…fast-paced, topical, irreverent and smart analysis of the news and action of the day. Sure we discuss equities, investment and strategies. And, yes, we have only the absolute best national guests every day to bring perspective to complex issues.

But where we really shine is our unique ability to understand the complex financial and political worlds around us.  As we all know, money is politics and politics is money.  In today’s world of lightning fast political and regulatory changes, even the best investment strategy can come unraveled quickly unless you understand what other forces are moving your markets.

We take the time to get it right every day.  Crisp and fresh analysis of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, our profligate Congress, the whims of the Executive branch, the latest from our Intel communities, cons and scams that could wreck your investments are all daily fare for our crack WSS Team.

We are proud that the information we discuss is as factual as possible. We then take that information and break it down into meaningful and actionable analysis. We may disagree on the conclusions but we won't disagree on the facts. There are too many talk shows that started out as political talk and then tried, most times unsuccessfully, to take that leap into financial analysis. We have always been a financial talk show that just happens to be very good at politics. These differences show when you discuss complex issues such as derivatives, off-balance sheet financing, the economic structure of various governments or the actions of central banks. Every one of these topics is significantly more important that a or from some analyst with the same information that you have.

Our team believes that if we can let you see just a little bit further into the financial future each day, you will make better investments. We don't tell you when to "buy, buy, buy" or "sell, sell, sell" because by then it is "too, too, too" late. See the whole financial and political world with new clarity and confidence. "Look into the distance instead of following the car in front of you." Be confident in your analysis and conclusions in a world of mere opinions. And, given the choice, wouldn't you rather listen to a show that isn't run by salesmen or a financial planner in a bad suit trying to sell you advisory services or some financial product?

We have the team with the experience and education to get the whole story right. "You need to know what we know."

Welcome to The Wall Street Shuffle family.

The Wall Street Shuffle is live each day from 4-5pm CST on CNN1190.  You can also find us on iTunes and we stream live daily from the link on our home page.

Today's Guest

Martin Lindstrom

Martin is the author of Buyology—Truth and Lies About Why We Buy (Doubleday, New York), a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best–seller. Lindstrom is CEO and Chairman of LINDSTROM Company and Chairman of Buyology Inc. (New York) as well as BRAND Sense agency (London).

Lindstrom is a trusted advisor to numerous Fortune 100 companies and internationally renowned organizations including McDonald’s Corporation, Nestlé, American Express, Procter & Gamble, Microsoft Corporation, PepsiCo, The Walt Disney Company, Unilver, GlaxoSmithKline, LEGO, Nokia, and Yellow Pages, amongst others. His personal global audience is estimated at over a million people.

Lindstrom has and continues to feature in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, TIME, The Economist, New York Times, BusinessWeek, The Washington Post, USA Today, Fast Company, Forbes, The Economist, Harvard Business Review, Chicago Tribune, The Independent, The Times, The Guardian, New York Post, and has also appeared on NBC’s Today Show, ABC News, CNN, CBS, Bloomberg, FOX, Discovery and BBC. His recent book, BRAND Sense, (Simon & Schuster, New York) was acclaimed by the Wall Street Journal as “…one of the five best marketing books ever published.”

His latest book, Buyology, was voted “pick of the year” by USAToday, and, between 2008 and 2009, reached ten of the Top 10 best-seller lists in the U.S. and worldwide. His 5 books on branding have been translated into more than 30 languages and published in more than 60 countries worldwide. In addition, the Buyology Symposium is now running in more than 60 countries worldwide.

Lindstrom frequently contributes to the New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, Parade, Contagious, CNN.com and Advertising Age and can often be seen on America’s #1 ranking morning TV show; The TODAY Show at NBC with his TV series: “Marketing Mind Games”.

From building blocks to brand builder.

It all began one bright and optimistic summer’s day in 1982 when ambitious 11–year–old Martin Lindstrom opened the doors to his very own Legoland. The miniature village had been meticulously prepared, complete with bonsai trees, scooped out inch–wide canals and featured numerous houses and ships constructed entirely out of Lego. Young Martin’s Legoland was the centerpiece of his parents’ back garden, and its creator anticipated a multitude of fascinated visitors. Not one showed up.

Aware that something more than mere brilliant design was needed to attract visitors, Martin had a brainwave: advertise! He promptly persuaded the local newspaper to run an ad—a simple act that was powerful enough to reveal the power of marketing. Sure enough, the following week 131 people streamed through the garden gate. Including two lawyers from Lego, who very politely informed Martin that if he persisted in using the name ‘Legoland’ he’d be guilty of trademark infringement. Intrigued by the idea that someone else and not he had ownership and total control of his favorite toy’s name, and seduced by the manifest power of advertising, Martin decided to open his own advertising agency, which he succeeded in doing a couple of months later. Aged 12.

After selling his agency in 1988, Lindstrom attended the Academy of Advertising before joining international giant, BBDO. In 1994 he went on to form BBDO Interactive Europe. Three years later he founded BBDO Interactive Asia, both agencies growing to become the largest Internet solution companies in their respective regions. By age 30, Lindstrom had been appointed global COO of British Telecom/Looksmart. Working out of London and Sydney, his primary role was to establish a global operation with offices across 18 countries.

According to the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the unusually rapid ascent of Lindstrom’s career is responsible for the guru status he has today. Clearly he is one of today’s most respected branding minds in the world. With a personal global audience of over a million people, Lindstrom is on the road 300 days annually sharing his brand of wisdom and pioneering methodologies through several speaking engagements and consultancies.

Martin Lindstrom is the author of 5 books, including collaborative works with industry icons such as Don Peppers, Martha Rogers, Paco Underhill, Patricia Seybold and Philip Kotler. Lindstrom’s previous book, BRAND Sense, published by Simon & Schuster New York, was acclaimed by the Wall Street Journal as “…one of the five best marketing books ever published.” Like BRAND Sense before it, Buyology—Truth and Lies About Why We Buy (Doubleday, New York), has been translated into over 30 languages.

TIME’s 100 Most Influential People: Lindstrom makes the 2009 list

In 2009, TIME Magazine, arguably one of the world’s most respected publications, published its annual World’s 100 Most Influential People, recognizing Lindstrom for his groundbreaking work on neuroscience and branding.

This prestigious event has included luminaries such as U.S. President Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, the Dalai Lama, Pope Benedict XVI, Steve Jobs, Hillary Clinton, Rupert Murdoch and Nelson Mandela. The honor is awarded to individuals recognized for their work as influencers of positive changes in the world; recipients are awarded in 5 categories: Leaders & Revolutionaries; Builders & Titans; Artists & Entertainers; Scientists & Thinkers; and Heroes & Icons. Twenty ‘Influencers’ are selected within each category (sometimes pairs or small groups), for a grand total of 100 each year.

According to Managing editor of TIME Magazine; Richard Strengelis, “Influence is hard to measure, and what we look for is people whose ideas, whose example, whose talent, whose discoveries transform the world we live in. Influence is less about the hard power of force than the soft power of ideas and example.” More at martinlindstrom.com.

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John Mauldin

I am often asked how to become an investment writer/analyst. The answer is I do not know. My rather torturous trek is not a model for young aspirants. It seems that I subscribe to the Yogi Berra School of Career Paths: “I came to the fork in the road and I took it.” Sometimes the path was obvious and sometimes it was forced upon me. Change was not always welcome, but it has always been interesting.

I grew up working in a small print shop, setting type by hand and running small presses, as well as the obligatory newspaper routes. I graduated from Rice University in 1972 and the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1974. God not being willing to foist me on some poor unsuspecting church (what a disaster that would have been!), I ended up running a small family printing business. I grew it substantially and then we sold it in 1976. I eventually became somewhat of a direct mail guru back when direct mail was just beginning to computerize. I started a company which sold checks through the mail, which allowed me to volunteer with a missionary outfit called Youth With a Mission for three years. During that period I did some consulting with an investment newsletter publisher. In 1981, I returned to the check printing company where we developed a new technology for printing checks. When we introduced the prototype in 1982 at COMDEX (a large computer show) it was the fastest bit-mapping printer in the world - 120 fully programmable pages a minute using magnetic toner, which was something in those days. It sold for $240,000 in 1982 dollars, if I remember correctly. I was fortunate (and forced) to sell out my interest at a very nice profit, as the largest investor wanted an older and more seasoned hi-tech CEO. His mistake, my good fortune. That was my first (and last!) foray into the high tech world. I then turned my attention to the investment publishing client (Dr. Gary North and the American Bureau of Economic Research), eventually buying a stake in the firm.

That was when Howard Ruff was the big dog on the block with 200,000 subscribers, Bill Bonner at Agora had a small office in a very rough neighborhood in Baltimore (it made me nervous to go there during the day!) and Tom Phillips was only a few years from his kitchen table. The investment newsletter publishing community, while competitive, worked closely together, sharing tips and secrets, as it was to everyone’s benefit to grow the total market.

Even though I had an emphasis upon economics at Rice, this was really my introduction to the investment world. It was at that time I was introduced to von Mises, Murray Rothbard and gained an appreciation for the Austrian school of economics. (I actually met with Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek [he was in his late 80’s at the time] in Austria, who wrote the seminal Road to Serfdom.) I helped a lot of subscribers get in the cellular telephone lotteries and our personal partnerships ended up winning a few. I banged around in Africa attempting to get some cellular licenses there (l-o-o-o-n-g story), trying to make lightening strike twice.

I also looked at hundreds of investment ideas and managers. I read voraciously and began to get some glimmer of the field. I soon realized there was more money to be made in managing money than writing about it. I formed a partnership with Gary Halbert of ProFutures in the late 80’s and we began to offer a variety of funds and managers to clients, helping build that firm into a quite respectable venture. Rather than directly manage money, we managed managers, so to speak. We emphasized alternative managers, market timers, asset allocation, commodity funds, and hedge funds. I had begun to write under my own name in the late 90’s and was meeting with some small success, and enjoyed it enormously.

I sold out to Gary in 1999 (a very friendly transaction) as I wanted to pursue some different directions. In addition to writing, I wanted to begin to manage money on my own. In my previous business, I looked over the shoulders of some of the better market timers, watching them at their trade.

I had been introduced to a money management and market timing system developed in the late 70’s using money flow indicators that had a very good track record. The gentleman who had done the work was retired and looking for someone to use his work. I spent a great deal of money having the system independently verified and then bought the system.

I found out as much about myself as I did about market timing. What I found out was that I did not have the emotional personality (the stomach?) to directly time the markets with someone else’s money. I could do it with mine and not lose sleep. But when it was a client’s, I simply worried too much over each move of the tape. It bordered on obsessive, although some members of my family might say I had a hazy idea about where the border was. Even with a mechanical system, I could not relax. My family says the best day of it all was when I sent the client money back.

I can watch another manager trade and not blink, and thoroughly enjoy the process of finding and monitoring investment managers and funds. Thus, I returned to doing what I knew and enjoyed best, which was finding money managers for my clients, with an emphasis upon hedge funds and alternative managers. I will say that I believe the experience helped make me a better judge of investment talent.

As an afterthought, during this time (late 2000) I put my newsletter on this new thing called the internet, starting with a thousand or so readers. It began to grow surprisingly fast. Today, my publisher sends the letter out to well over 1,500,000 readers each week.

What I now do every day is one of the most fun things I could ever imagine doing. I am insatiably curious about the future. I want to know what is around the Curve in the Road. My passion is to try to understand the world of economics and investment, politics and science and how they all may come together in the future. I read anything and everything that interests me and then write about it. I get to analyze the investment approaches of some of the smartest (and most interesting) people one could ever hope to meet. I have the opportunity to travel to lots of fun places. And amazingly I make a living at it. I get paid to read and think and talk to interesting people (which includes you when we finally get to meet). What a deal!

The letter was first a passion. I simply love the discipline of writing. It forces me to think. I did not realize just how large it would become, or what a focus of my business life.

By early 2002 it was clear that my small firm could not handle the potential business without serious restructuring. I had built a few businesses with lots of employees before. I knew what it would take. To add more staff, researchers, sales people, etc. would take away the time from the reading, research, manager analysis, writing, speaking and client conversations that I really enjoyed.

I decided to develop a series of strategic relationships with other firms which would allow me to do what I do best and what I enjoy doing. In essence, I direct investors interested in my ideas to them, they do the sales, share in the due diligence and research responsibilities and we share in any income which is generated.

For those who are interested and who qualify, I write a free letter on hedge funds and private offerings called the Accredited Investor E-letter. You must be an accredited investor (broadly defined as a net worth of $1,000,000 or $200,000 annual income – see details at the website.) You can go to www.accreditedinvestor.ws to subscribe to the letter and see complete details, including the risks in hedge funds. (I am President of Millennium Wave Securities, LLC, an FINRA registered broker-dealer. www.finra.org)

A Few More Details from the Official Bio

John is a Fort Worth, Texas businessman, now living in Uptown Dallas, and the father of seven children, ranging from ages 13 through 30, five of whom are adopted.

He was Chief Executive Officer of the American Bureau of Economic Research, Inc., a publisher of newsletters and books on various investment topics, from 1982 to 1987. He was one of the founders of Adopting Children Together Inc., the largest adoption support group in Texas. He currently serves on the board of directors of The International Reconciliation Coalition and the International Children’s Relief Fund. He is also a member of the Knights of Malta, and has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Texas.

He is a frequent contributor to numerous publications, and guest on TV and radio shows as well as quoted widely in the press.

John is the President of Millennium Wave Advisors, LLC (MWA) which is an investment advisory firm registered in multiple states. John Mauldin is President of Millennium Wave Securities, LLC a FINRA registered broker-dealer. MWS is also a Commodity Pool Operator (CPO) and a Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) registered with the CFTC, as well as an Introducing Broker (IB).

Behind the Scenes

Naresh Vissa, Taking Syracuse University by storm, Naresh is a third-year Renée Crown University Honors Program student, majoring in Finance, Accounting and Broadcast Journalism at the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Previously a writer for the ?Daily Orange? newspaper and Executive Board member of the South Asian Students Association, he is a Junior Analyst for the Orange Value Fund (OVF). Known as "the Ivy League within the Whitman School," OVF students take MBA-level finance classes, learn the ins and outs of value investing philosophies, and help research, report and manage more than 1.1 million dollars of investor money.

Ed Moyer- Texan Native, Ed Moyer the sarcastic voice of reason, who finds ways to get inside Dan's head has been a great asset to The Wall Street Shuffle team from the shows inception. His many contributions  to the program include IT support, handling the changing flow of the show, updating podcasts, gathering last minute news, as well as securing  guests on the phones for Dan and Cindy.  Ed, Dan and Cindy partake in good natured banter and ribbing from time to time that adds an interesting mix for listeners. 

Ed is a career IT service professional that has survived the radio business for a number of years

Shane Bell- Shane Bell is a native of Arlington, the father of three beautiful kids.  He is also a grad student at the University of North Texas finishing his MA in Radio/Television/Film.  He is also a musician, a motorcyclist, a business owner, and rancher.  He loves being the technical producer for the Wall Street Shuffle.  He enjoys working with Dan, Cindy, and Ed on the show prep, production, and planning the shows.