Lee Geiger

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

Theodore Roosevelt

To: Andy Brooks, Head of U.S. Equity Trading at T. Rowe Price

From: Lee Geiger, Middle-aged sales trader trapped in the twilight of a mediocre career

Dear Andy,

I regret to inform you that I will be unable to attend the May 23, 2017 reception in New York City celebrating your 37 years of service at T. Rowe Price, including 25 years as head of U.S. Equity Trading. I’ve spent countless hours trying to concoct a lame excuse worthy of the questionable sales trading coverage I’ve provided over the years, but I’ve learned during the two-plus-decades of our professional relationship that the truth always worked best. So allow me to serve up the real reason why I won’t be joining the festivities in New York, in terms a career trader like yourself would appreciate; stock traded ahead of you.

We go way back, Andy, like two ancient mastodons rocking the Pleistocene era. And your fingerprints all over the critical turning points of my career. I’ll never forget the first time we met, back when paper tickets were in vogue. It was April of 1991, and I was a newly hired shyster assigned to pilfer, I mean cover, T. Rowe Price for that Left Coast den of thieves known as Montgomery Securities. Over a lunch of fish and crow, you and legendary T. Rowe boss man Austin George told me in no uncertain terms that, if it were up to either of you, T. Rowe Price would NEVER write another ticket with those conniving, duplicitous, and opportunistic sons of bitches from San Francisco. “Why trade for an honest eighth of a point between customers,” said Austin, “when you can lie right to our faces and rip us off for quarters.” Ah, the good old days.

At some point during the ensuing twelve years of stock market shock and awe (interrupted by a three-year pit stop at Robertson Stephens & Co.), I convinced you to take a call from Montgomery without having to first spray the phone with disinfectant. How can I ever thank you for the wonderful going away party you threw for me in Baltimore the first time I “retired” from Wall Street? It was the summer of 2003, and the masters of the universe at Bank of America/Montgomery had unceremoniously squeezed me out. Every trader from the desk showed up, along with a handful of PM’s and top execs. I still wear the T. Rowe Price golf sweater you gave me that night, though, like me, it’s beginning to fade and unravel.

When I pulled a General MacArthur and returned to Wall Street in 2004 to join upstart JMP Securities, you said T. Rowe couldn’t, shouldn’t and wouldn’t trade with me unless our firm made its way onto the T. Rowe Price research budget. JMP cleared that hurdle, but to paraphrase the great Bob Dylan, “the times they were a changin’.” The explosion of electronic trading, combined with the death spiral of commission compression, had tempered the role of the traditional sales trader. The only dynamic evolving faster than trading desk technology were the flimsy stories sales traders crafted in a frenetic effort to keep up. It was while negotiating a nefarious trade with you in March 2007, for a company that, appropriately, made toilet seats, that I came to the realization I didn’t want to spend the next decade on Wall Street talking to clients with my fingers crossed. Two months later, JMP went public and I downloaded Retirement 2.0. Just in time, it turned out, for a global…financial…panic.

Hemorrhaging cash and possessing no other discernable job skills, I AGAIN returned to Wall Street in 2009, to newcomer Penserra Securities. You AGAIN gave me your patented T. Rowe Price stiff-arm. But this being my third trip down the aisle, I believed my corrosive charm and waning good looks would ultimately win you over. (The fact Penserra was a minority broker might have also had something to do with it.) And here we are, eight years and a galaxy of dark pools later, still trading together. Who woulda’ thunk? (plus a merger later..Penserra Securities and Chicago-based Cheevers and Company officially merged this month)

Let’s pause for a moment and do the math. Since I began covering T. Rowe Price in 1991, I’ve worked at Montgomery, Robertson Stephens, Montgomery, Nationsbank/Montgomery, Bank of America/Montgomery, JMP and Penserra. Oh yeah, and I’ve twice downloaded the retirement app. You, on the other hand, have been the loyal T. Rowe soldier, busily marching to your own beat, with most of that spent as Head of U.S. Equity Trading.

What does that say?

I believe it says, Mr. Brooks, that you are the consummate Wall Street professional, and that in these rapidly evolving times you have represented yourself and T. Rowe Price with a level of steady consistency, tacit credibility and polished sophistication worthy of a firm of its stature. For nearly four decades you have played a major role helping to make T. Rowe Price what it is today; an industry leader with a sterling reputation. You were never the best trader on the desk, but that wasn’t your job. Instead, you played a crucial role managing disparate personalities and navigating through tsunami-like changes in trading technology. You helped to create a sustainable culture and dedicated work environment. You were the very public face of T. Rowe Price trading, whose expertise and acumen has become the gold standard of efficiency for the entire industry. That kind of zealous commitment and tireless effort deserves not only my admiration, but also my respect. Well done, sir.

On a personal level, I know how much you value your families, both the one you work for and the one you come home to. Years ago, I wrote about a trip you took with your sons to Mount Kilimanjaro, while at the same time raising money for charity. I also know about the “Jack-strong” photo you championed that now hangs in a T. Rowe Price lobby in honor of Jack Laporte, the late, great portfolio manager and one of the best human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure to know.

In closing, I wish to mention one snapshot from our relationship that will be forever time-stamped in my memory bank; September 11, 2001. It’s approximately 5:50am pacific time, and I’m on the phone with you, mindlessly dishing Montgomery’s daily research slop. You stop me in mid-sentence and say, “Hey Lee, are you watching what’s on TV?” I glance up at a  television suspended over the trading floor broadcasting a white building with a huge smoldering hole blown through it. At the bottom of the picture is a caption that reads, “Small Plane Hits World Trade Center.” After a pause, I anxiously utter, “That’s no small plane, Andy.” We simultaneously sign off with a pair of “I’ll call you back’s.”

Thank you for being a good customer, Andy. Thank you for being a better friend.

Good luck and Godspeed.

Lee Geiger, a.k.a. “Leslie”