The Wolf of Wall Street

I recently saw The Wolf of Wall Street, the new film to hit cinemas starring a magnetic Leonardo DiCaprio playing former Wall Street stockbroker, Jordan Belfort.

I have always loved Leo. Mainly for his acting and great films, but I also have a fond affection for celebrities sharing my age.  Leo and me were born the same year.  Kate Moss too.  

Leo is sterling in the film and despite thinking it would drag on – given the fact I’d read one New York Times review that said it was too long - as well the letter from the daughter of one of the men in Belfort’s circle (see link: Hollywood Reporter) suggesting we should know better, have a moral conscience, and boycott the film – I absolutely loved it.

Perhaps however, I shouldn’t have. This story is all too familiar. Not in the generic sense of we all know how Wall Street breeds greed but because I lived through a similar scene.  Yeah, right before the global financial crisis hit in 2008, I was on the periphery of my own Wolf circle.  

As a result of dating one of them, I was a bystander to the antics of rich and privileged boys living it up in Sydney. Their bonds made stronger by making money together.  They achieved this largely by playing the stock market guided by the tips of one of their buddies – a broker. His specialty, like Belfort’s, was ‘penny stock’.

And just like the film, I was one of the people who got caught up in the excitement of investing my money in this penny stock, believing it would be the winning financial ticket.

Only I lost it all.  And just like the film (where Matthew McConaughey’s character encourages Leo’s to give investors a false sense of a win) I would see many of my investments double on paper in a matter of weeks.  But I was too hooked and blind to cash out and as a subsequence I followed a roller coaster of ups and downs, watching it peak, then fall, climb a little again, only to crash and burn after GFC.

Post-GFC my Dad sent me an article from well-known Australian stock market analyst Charlie Aitken. I had been shaking my head in disbelief at the cold hard reality that I’d just gambled and lost my savings on fairy dust.

In this letter, Charlie quoted a line from the poem Desiderata: You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.  

Charlie had quoted this in the context that his readers must understand if you are going to play the stock market, there will be wins and there will be losses.  Life goes on.

There are lessons to learn from this and I hope I’ve learned mine.  My father likened the crowd my boyfriend fraternized with as “cowboys” and he was right.  But unlike me, the cowboys were part of the Wolf pack and they cut their gains before they could lose. Just like Belfort and his team of brokers.

I guess the point is – I recognized a lot of my own experience in this film.  But like a lot of personal tragedies they wear to a reflective smile and wisened soul over time.