#113 Investment Compass -Ep.09- The Real Wolf of Wall Street

Inside the Rise, Fall, and Enduring Deception of Stratton Oakmont

The Real Wolf of Wall Street: Inside the Rise, Fall, and Enduring Deception of Stratton Oakmont

Introduction: The Myth and the Money

For millions, the story of Stratton Oakmont is a dizzying montage of hedonism, immortalized by Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film, The Wolf of Wall Street. The film depicts a world of unrestrained excess: Quaalude-fueled parties, speeches delivered to a roaring bullpen of brokers, and a lifestyle so lavish it bordered on the surreal. This cinematic portrayal, centered on the charismatic and corrupt Jordan Belfort, has become the definitive account for a generation, painting a picture of renegade genius and rebellion against a staid financial establishment.

But behind the Hollywood glamour lies a much grimmer and more consequential reality. The story of Stratton Oakmont is not a comedy about getting rich; it is a tragedy about getting robbed. It is the story of a meticulously engineered criminal enterprise that, over seven years, defrauded at least 1,513 investors out of an estimated $200 million. These were not Wall Street titans, but often ordinary people who lost their life savings. Federal prosecutors and regulators who dismantled the firm were clear: Stratton Oakmont was not a "real Wall Street firm, either literally or figuratively". It was a "boiler room," a high-pressure fraud factory located not in the canyons of Manhattan, but in a nondescript office park on Long Island.

At the heart of this operation were two men: Jordan Belfort, the magnetic founder and architect of the firm's manipulative sales tactics, and his chief lieutenant, Danny Porush, the firm's president who helped execute the vision. Together, they built a company that became, in the words of regulators, "one of the worst actors" in the history of the securities industry.

This report moves beyond the cinematic caricature to provide a comprehensive, clear-eyed investigation into Stratton Oakmont. We will dissect how the firm was built not as a legitimate business that fell from grace, but as an engine of fraud from its very inception. We will explore the mechanics of its signature "pump and dump" schemes, the cult-like corporate culture that fueled its aggression, the multi-agency regulatory war that ultimately brought it down, and its complicated, controversial legacy—a legacy that includes a celebrity criminal, largely uncompensated victims, and, in a bizarre twist of fate, the legal foundation of the modern internet.

Section 1: Forging the Boiler Room

The story of Stratton Oakmont is not one of a legitimate firm that was slowly corrupted by greed. On the contrary, the evidence suggests it was engineered for fraud from its very foundation, built by men whose backgrounds and ambitions made them uniquely suited to operate outside the established rules of finance.

The Founders: Ambition Before the Fall

The firm was a reflection of its founders, Jordan Belfort and Danny Porush, two ambitious outsiders from the boroughs of New York City. Born in 1962 to accountant parents in Queens, Jordan Belfort displayed an early entrepreneurial flair, earning $20,000 one summer selling Italian ice on the beach. His initial path was conventional; he enrolled in dental school, but reportedly dropped out on the first day after the dean warned students that dentistry was not a reliable path to great wealth.³ This moment revealed a singular focus on high earnings that would define his life. His next venture, a door-to-door meat and seafood sales business on Long Island, showed his natural talent for sales but ultimately ended in bankruptcy when he was 25. This failure pushed him away from tangible goods and toward the abstract, high-stakes world of the stock market.

His partner in crime, Danny Porush, came from a similar Long Island background but with a less focused trajectory. The son of a doctor, Porush attended both Dickinson College and Boston University but never graduated. He "bounced from job to job," even running a small ambulette company, before finding his way to Belfort. Neither man was a Wall Street insider with an Ivy League pedigree. They were hustlers, unburdened by the industry's norms and ethics, who saw rules not as guardrails but as inconvenient obstacles. This outsider status would become a key feature of their enterprise, allowing them to build a culture in their own image.

Birth of a Monster (1989)

Belfort's foray into finance began with a brief stint at the venerable L.F. Rothschild, from which he was fired in the aftermath of the 1987 "Black Monday" market crash. His most formative experience, however, came at a small-time Long Island brokerage called Investor Center. It was there he was introduced to the lucrative and loosely regulated world of "penny stocks"—the low-priced, high-commission securities that would become his weapon of choice.

In 1989, Belfort, together with Porush, took this knowledge and started their own venture: a franchise of a minor broker-dealer named Stratton Securities. Their aggressive sales tactics were immediately effective. Within just five months, they had earned enough money to buy out the entire Stratton franchise. Their first major decision was a masterstroke of deception. They renamed the firm "Stratton Oakmont," a name deliberately crafted to sound established, respectable, and vaguely British or old-money—a psychological ploy to gain the trust of unsuspecting investors over the phone. From its very name, Stratton Oakmont was built on a lie.

The Sales Engine: The "Kodak Pitch" and the "Straight Line"

The engine of Stratton Oakmont was its sales method, a system of manipulation Belfort himself developed. The infamous "Kodak pitch" was the entry point for the fraud. New brokers were given scripts and trained to cold-call potential clients to pitch a "blue-chip" stock, like Eastman Kodak. Blue-chips are shares in large, financially sound, market-leading companies, making them a relatively safe investment. The purpose of this initial pitch was not to make money on Kodak, but to establish credibility and build trust with the client. It was the bait.

Once the client trusted the broker and had opened an account, the switch would occur. The broker would then pivot to the real product: high-risk, speculative penny stocks in which Stratton held a large, undisclosed position. This "bait-and-switch" was the firm's foundational sales strategy. Belfort would later refine and brand these high-pressure persuasion techniques into what he now markets as the "Straight Line System," a supposedly legitimate sales methodology born from a deeply criminal enterprise.

The key players

Jordan Belfort - Founder, CEO, Chairman
Sentenced to 4 years, served 22 months. Ordered to pay $110M in restitution. Permanently barred from the securities industry.

Danny Porush - President, Chairman/CEO (post-Belfort)
Sentenced to 4 years, served 39 months. Ordered to pay $200M in restitution. Permanently barred from the securities industry.

Andrew Greene - Head of Corporate Finance
Fined in investor arbitration cases. Sued the producers of The Wolf of Wall Street for defamation; the suit was ultimately dismissed.

Steven P. Sanders - Head Trader
Permanently barred from the securities industry by the NASD and fined for his role in fraudulent markups.

Jordan Shamah - Vice President
Fined in investor arbitration cases. Permanently barred from the securities industry. Later faced new fraud charges post-Stratton.

Steve Madden - Business Associate / IPO Client
Convicted of securities fraud and money laundering for his role in 22 manipulated IPOs. Sentenced to 41 months in prison.

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Section 2: The Engine of Fraud: How the Pump and Dump Worked

Stratton Oakmont’s wealth was built on a classic, brutally effective form of securities fraud: the "pump and dump" scheme. This was not a side business or an occasional transgression; it was the firm's entire business model, executed with industrial-scale efficiency and a level of sophistication that went far beyond simple market manipulation.

Anatomy of the "Pump and Dump" Scheme

The concept of a pump and dump is straightforward. First, fraudsters acquire a large position in a stock at a very low price (the "pump"). They then use false rumors, misleading statements, and high-pressure hype to create a buying frenzy, artificially inflating the stock's price. Once the price is sufficiently pumped up, the fraudsters "dump" all of their shares onto the unsuspecting public at the peak price. With the manipulators gone and the hype revealed as baseless, the stock price collapses, leaving investors holding worthless shares while the fraudsters walk away with huge profits.

Stratton Oakmont chose its targets carefully, specializing in "penny stocks" or "microcap" securities. These stocks were the perfect vehicle for fraud for several key reasons. They trade "over-the-counter" (OTC) rather than on major, regulated exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange. This means there is often limited publicly available information about the companies, they are not followed by mainstream financial analysts, and their small size and low trading volume make their prices incredibly easy to manipulate. A few large trades could dramatically swing the price, an effect that would be a mere drop in the ocean for a large company like General Electric.

The "pump" at Stratton was carried out by its army of brokers in the "boiler room." Following Belfort's scripts, they would bombard potential investors with cold calls, using aggressive, high-pressure tactics and outright lies about a company's prospects to create artificial demand. To ensure the "dump" was effective, Stratton would often refuse to process its clients' sell orders, locking them into their positions while the firm's insiders cashed out at the artificially high prices.

The IPO Machine: Manufacturing Fraud from Scratch

As the firm grew, its methods evolved. Simply manipulating existing penny stocks was not enough; it carried the risk that other shareholders might sell or the company itself could release bad news, disrupting the scheme. So, Stratton took its fraud to the next level: it began taking companies public itself through Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). Over its lifetime, the firm was responsible for the IPOs of at least 35 companies. This strategy represented a significant escalation, moving from parasitic manipulation of existing markets to the creation of entirely new, fraudulent micro-markets where Stratton controlled all the variables from the start.

The key to this IPO fraud was illegally controlling the "float"—the total number of a company's shares available for public trading. Stratton achieved this through secret, illegal agreements with a network of associates known as "flippers". These individuals would be allocated huge blocks of stock in an IPO with the explicit, pre-arranged understanding that they would sell—or "flip"—the shares back to Stratton for a small, guaranteed profit immediately after trading began. This tactic allowed Stratton to secretly maintain ownership of the vast majority of a company's stock while creating the public illusion that the shares were widely distributed. With control over both supply (its hidden cache of stock) and demand (its boiler room of brokers), profit was a mathematical certainty.

Case Study in Deceit: The Steve Madden IPO (December 1993)

The most famous example of Stratton's IPO machine was that of the footwear company Steve Madden, Ltd. (ticker: SHOO). The case reveals the depth of the deception and the symbiotic, corrupt relationship Stratton fostered with seemingly legitimate businesses. Shoe designer Steve Madden was a childhood friend of Danny Porush, and Stratton agreed to underwrite his company's IPO in late 1993.

According to a detailed complaint later filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Madden was not a passive beneficiary but an active conspirator in the fraud. He served as a key flipper in at least 22 different IPOs manipulated by Stratton and its spin-off, Monroe Parker Securities. For his own company's IPO, the fraud was even more brazen. At the time, the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) had rules preventing a firm's principal, like Jordan Belfort, from owning more than 4.9% of a company whose IPO he was underwriting. To circumvent this, Belfort and Madden concocted a sham agreement. Belfort transferred his excess shares to BOCAP Corporation, a company secretly owned by Madden, in exchange for a promissory note. The prospectus presented this as a legitimate sale, but secretly, both men agreed that Belfort still owned the stock.

This was a direct lie to regulators and the investing public. With Belfort's illegal control of the company hidden and the float secured through other flippers, Stratton's brokers went to work. They pumped the stock price, allowing Belfort, Porush, and their cronies to dump their shares for massive profits. Belfort alone reportedly made $23 million from the Madden IPO in a matter of minutes. The corruption had come full circle: Stratton provided Madden with the capital to build his now-famous brand, and in return, Madden provided Stratton with a legitimate-looking vehicle for its fraud and actively helped them perpetrate it. For his role, Steve Madden was convicted in 2002 of stock manipulation and money laundering and ultimately served more than three years in federal prison.

Section 3: The Culture of Corruption

The relentless fraud at Stratton Oakmont was powered by a corporate culture so extreme and toxic that it has become legendary. This environment of debauchery and aggression was not merely a byproduct of newfound wealth; it was a deliberately cultivated management strategy designed to recruit, indoctrinate, and control a sales force capable of committing crime on a massive scale.

The Stratton Ethos: "Don't Hang Up Until the Customer Buys or Dies"

This infamous motto, reportedly drilled into every broker, perfectly captured the firm's singular focus. The only goal was the sale. Client well-being, ethical considerations, and the legitimacy of the product were entirely irrelevant. This ethos was reinforced by what one analysis called a "virulent" incentive system. Brokers at Stratton could earn staggering commissions, as high as 50% on the penny stocks they pushed. This structure was diabolically effective: it ensured that the broker and the firm made enormous profits on every transaction, regardless of whether the investment ultimately made or lost money for the client. This created a system where there was "no necessary duty for brokers towards clients," completely severing the broker's success from the customer's outcome.

An Army of "Strattonites": The Hiring Strategy

To build his army, Belfort avoided Wall Street veterans. Instead, Stratton deliberately recruited young, hungry, and often uneducated men from outside the financial world. A former employee recalled that the firm "wanted basically uneducated unexperienced people," adding that "you didn't even need a high school diploma". The objective was to hire malleable individuals—blank slates who were not ingrained with the industry's ethical norms or regulatory knowledge. One broker stated that Belfort "basically wanted us stupid so they could train us in their mold".

This strategy allowed Belfort to create a loyal legion of "Strattonites." He could mold them into what he called "trained killers," indoctrinated into the "Stratton way of life" and loyal only to him and the promise of immense wealth, not to any professional code of conduct.

Debauchery as a Business Tool

The cinematic depiction of Stratton Oakmont as a veritable circus of sex, drugs, and bizarre behavior is, by most accounts, largely accurate. Prostitutes were regulars at the office, drug use was rampant, and outrageous stunts—like paying a female employee $5,000 to allow traders to shave her head—were part of the normal course of business.

This was not just hedonism for its own sake; it was a calculated instrument of control. The lavish parties, the constant presence of drugs, and the ostentatious displays of wealth were designed to keep money "omnipresent" in the minds of the employees. This created a powerful, cult-like "us-against-the-world" mentality. The shared deviance and extreme lifestyle bonded the brokers to one another and to their leader, isolating them from outside social norms and reinforcing the idea that only the rules inside Stratton's walls mattered.

The "Wolf of Wall Street" persona that Belfort cultivated was a key part of this internal control mechanism. His impassioned, often drug-fueled speeches to the sales floor were not for public consumption; they were performances for his internal audience of young, impressionable brokers. As Belfort himself wrote in his memoir, "It was as if my life was a stage, and the Wolf of Wall Street was performing for the benefit of some imaginary audience". That audience was his staff. By embodying the "Wolf," he provided a figure to emulate—a leader living the very dream of obscene wealth he was selling them, making the fraudulent enterprise seem not just profitable but aspirational and heroic.

Section 4: The Long Arm of the Law

The downfall of Stratton Oakmont was not a single, dramatic event as often portrayed in fiction. It was a slow, grinding war of attrition waged on multiple fronts by state and federal regulators who were determined to shut down a firm they viewed as a cancer on the industry.

A House Under Siege (1989-1996)

From its very beginning, Stratton Oakmont operated under a cloud of suspicion. The National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), the industry's self-regulatory body now known as FINRA, held the firm under "near-constant scrutiny" from 1989 onward. The pressure escalated significantly in March 1992, when the SEC filed its first major lawsuit, officially charging Stratton and its principals with operating a "boiler room" and manipulating the stock of a company called Nova Capital, Inc..

This led to a 1994 settlement in which Stratton paid over $2.5 million in fines and, most significantly, Jordan Belfort agreed to a lifetime ban from running a securities firm. This, however, did not stop the fraud. Belfort simply installed Danny Porush as the new official Chairman and CEO and continued to pull the strings from behind the scenes.¹⁰ The firm's defiant continuation of its fraudulent practices demonstrated that fines and sanctions were merely a cost of doing business. A more decisive blow was needed.

The Final Takedown: How FINRA Closed the Doors

While the SEC and FBI built their respective cases, the fatal wound was ultimately delivered by the NASD. The takedown was a case study in regulatory persistence, won not on the grand narrative of moral outrage but on a meticulous, technical violation. A special NASD enforcement team, led by individuals who would later describe the firm's horrific record, focused their investigation on Stratton's aftermarket trading of warrants for a company called Master Glazier's Karate International, Inc., an entity founded by a friend of Belfort's.

The NASD investigators painstakingly reconstructed the trading records and proved that Stratton completely dominated and controlled the market for these warrants. With this control, the firm charged its retail customers "excessive and fraudulent markups"—prices far above the prevailing market price—totaling over $416,000 on 158 trades. This was a clear, provable, and indefensible violation of NASD rules.

The legal battle that followed sealed the firm's fate.

Timeline

Mar 1992 - SEC files its first major lawsuit against Stratton Oakmont. Marks the beginning of serious federal regulatory action, alleging a "boiler room" and stock manipulation.

Mar 1994 - Belfort settles with the SEC, accepting a lifetime industry ban. Removes Belfort as the official head of the firm, though he continues to operate from the shadows.

Oct 1994 - Stratton Oakmont sues Prodigy Services for libel. An act of corporate aggression that inadvertently leads to the creation of Section 230, the foundational law of the modern internet.

Apr 1996 - NASD District Committee sanctions Stratton based on the Master Glazier's case. The first major blow from the NASD, barring the firm from its core business of principal retail trading for one year.

Dec 1996 - NASD National Committee expels Stratton Oakmont from the industry. The final, fatal blow. The expulsion effectively puts Stratton Oakmont out of business for good.

1999 - Belfort and Porush are indicted for securities fraud and money laundering. The criminal endgame begins, leading to their guilty pleas and incarceration.

Criminal Charges and Consequences

With Stratton Oakmont shuttered and in liquidation, the criminal prosecution gathered steam. In 1999, a federal grand jury indicted Belfort and Porush on charges of securities fraud and money laundering. Faced with overwhelming evidence, both men pleaded guilty, admitting to running a scheme that manipulated the stock of at least 34 different companies over a seven-year period.

The legal system's most powerful tool for unraveling complex conspiracies—the plea bargain—was put to full use. To secure lighter sentences, both Belfort and Porush agreed to become informants for the FBI, wearing wires and testifying against their former partners and subordinates. This cooperation was crucial in dismantling the wider network of fraud. Ultimately, Belfort, the mastermind, was sentenced to four years in prison but served only 22 months. Porush received a four-year sentence and served 39 months. Other executives also faced the music. Head trader Steven P. Sanders was barred from the industry for his role in the fraudulent markups, as was Vice President Jordan Shamah, who was also fined in numerous investor arbitration cases and later faced new fraud charges after leaving the firm.

Section 5: The Aftermath: Infamy, Restitution, and Legacy

The collapse of Stratton Oakmont in 1996 was not the end of the story, but the beginning of a complex and often troubling legacy. The aftermath is a tale of celebrity, unfulfilled justice, and a bizarre, accidental impact on the digital world that far outweighs its influence on finance.

Paying the Price? The Great Restitution Controversy

As part of their sentences, the leaders of Stratton Oakmont were ordered to pay massive sums in restitution to the thousands of investors they had defrauded. Belfort was ordered to pay over $110 million, while Porush was ordered to pay $200 million. These figures, however, stand in stark contrast to the amounts actually recovered.

Belfort's restitution agreement required him to pay 50% of his income to his victims through 2009. Yet, in 2013, federal prosecutors filed a complaint alleging he had failed to meet his obligations. While Belfort has profited handsomely from his books, the movie rights, and a lucrative career as a motivational speaker, reports suggest he has paid back only a small fraction—perhaps as little as $14 million—of the $110 million he owes. This has been a persistent point of outrage and criticism, highlighting a deep moral paradox: the architect of the fraud has successfully monetized the story of his crimes, while many of his victims have never been made whole.

The Wolf Rebranded

Upon his release from prison, Jordan Belfort embarked on a remarkable second act. He claims that his cellmate at Taft Correctional Institution, the comedian Tommy Chong, encouraged him to write down his story. The result was the 2007 memoir The Wolf of Wall Street* and its sequel. The books, and especially the subsequent Scorsese film, transformed Belfort from a disgraced felon into an international celebrity. He reinvented himself as a motivational speaker and corporate sales trainer, marketing his "Straight Line System" and pontificating on business ethics—the very concept he so flagrantly violated. He now claims to be a "more benevolent character," a wolf supposedly tamed.

Danny Porush also re-entered the business world, though with less public fanfare. He became involved with a Florida-based medical supply company called Med-Care. In a move that surprised few who followed his history, that company later became the subject of federal investigations into Medicare fraud.

Life Imitates Art: The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

The 2013 film cemented the Stratton Oakmont saga in the public consciousness. Based on Belfort's self-serving memoir, the movie is largely accurate in its depiction of the firm's depraved culture and criminal spirit, but it takes significant liberties with specific events and characters for dramatic effect.

The movie vs. reality

Dwarf-Tossing at the Office
Fiction. The idea was reportedly discussed but rejected by Belfort himself as being too outrageous.

Donnie Azoff (Danny Porush)
Composite Character. The character is loosely based on Danny Porush, but his name was changed after Porush threatened to sue. The character also incorporates elements of other Stratton employees.

Donnie Marrying His Cousin
Fact. The real Danny Porush did marry his first cousin.

Belfort Sinks His Yacht
Fact. Belfort did own and sink a 167-foot luxury yacht, formerly owned by Coco Chanel, during a storm in the Mediterranean.

Attempting to Bribe an FBI Agent
Fiction. Belfort never tried to bribe the FBI agent leading the case against him.

"I'm Not F--king Leaving!" Speech
Embellishment. Belfort did give a farewell speech when he stepped down in 1994, but he heavily implied he would still be running the firm from the sidelines. The dramatic reversal was a cinematic invention.

The "Wolf of Wall Street" Nickname
Likely Fiction. There is little evidence anyone referred to Belfort as "The Wolf" until after his memoir was published. The moniker was likely a self-aggrandizing invention for the book.

The Enduring Impact

The Stratton Oakmont scandal serves as a timeless cautionary tale about the dangers of greed and high-pressure sales tactics. Yet, its lessons have not always been heeded. In the years since, numerous former Stratton brokers have been charged in new pump-and-dump schemes, demonstrating that the playbook they learned remains in use.

However, in a remarkable twist of history, the firm's most significant and lasting legacy has nothing to do with finance. In 1995, in an act of characteristic aggression, Stratton Oakmont sued the early online service provider Prodigy for libel. An anonymous user had posted on a "Money Talk" bulletin board, accusing the firm of being criminal and fraudulent. A New York court ruled that because Prodigy moderated its forums, it was acting as a "publisher" and could therefore be held liable for the user's comments.

This ruling sent a shockwave through the nascent internet industry. If online platforms were liable for everything their users posted, the risk of hosting user-generated content would be untenable. In direct response to the Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy case, the U.S. Congress passed Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in 1996. This landmark piece of legislation grants online platforms broad immunity from liability for third-party content, clarifying that they are distributors, not publishers. This law is widely considered the legal cornerstone of the modern internet, enabling the existence of social media giants like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube. In one of history's great ironies, a defunct, criminal penny-stock boiler room is responsible for the law that shapes the 21st-century digital public square.

Conclusion: Lessons from the Wolf's Den

The saga of Stratton Oakmont is a journey from a meticulously engineered fraud to a cult-like corporate culture, through a grinding regulatory war, and into a paradoxical afterlife of celebrity and legal legacy. It is a story that offers more than just lurid entertainment; it provides a stark reminder of the devastating human cost of financial crime and the corrosive power of greed disguised as ambition. The "Wolf" and his pack were eventually brought down, but the story leaves us with crucial, actionable lessons for navigating the investment world.

For the modern investor, the key takeaways from the Stratton Oakmont playbook are timeless warnings:

• Beware of High-Pressure Sales and Unsolicited Pitches. The core of Stratton's method was the unsolicited cold call promising urgent, can't-miss opportunities. Any investment pitch that creates a sense of extreme urgency, guarantees high returns, or pressures you into an immediate decision is a monumental red flag. Legitimate investment professionals do not operate this way.

• Question the Source and Do Your Own Research. A fancy title or a respectable-sounding firm name is meaningless. Belfort's brokers called themselves "Senior Vice Presidents" of "Stratton Oakmont" to project an authority they did not possess. Before investing, conduct independent due diligence not only on the company being pitched but also on the brokerage firm and the individual broker. Tools like FINRA's BrokerCheck exist for this very purpose.

• Understand the Product and Its Risks. Stratton built its empire on penny stocks because they are opaque, illiquid, and easy to manipulate. If you cannot find reliable, independent financial information about an investment, or if it trades on an obscure over-the-counter market, exercise extreme caution. If an investment sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is.

• Diversification is Your Ultimate Shield. The most tragic victims of Stratton Oakmont were those who, convinced by the hype, invested their life savings into one or two of the firm's fraudulent stocks. No single investment, no matter how compelling the story, is worth risking your entire financial security. A diversified portfolio is the most fundamental defense against the catastrophic losses that fraud can inflict.

Ultimately, Stratton Oakmont serves as a powerful case study in market pathology. It demonstrates how a vacuum of ethics, combined with powerful incentives and a vulnerable class of investments, can create a perfect storm of fraud. The players may change, and the technology may evolve from boiler room cold calls to social media hype, but the underlying human emotions they exploit—greed and the fear of missing out—are a permanent feature of the financial markets. The wolf is always at the door, and for the prudent investor, vigilance is the only lock that holds.

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