He Survived Every Stock Market Crash… Now He Trades $1 Billion/Day | Peter Tuchman

Peter Tuchman has spent roughly four decades on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and is widely known as the “Einstein of Wall Street.” The conversation centers on his experience surviving crashes, executing enormous trades, adapting to technology, and teaching younger traders.

Tuchman began at the NYSE on March 28, 1985, when he was 25. He had just returned from roughly a year and a half living in Africa, and an older brother who worked in Wall Street takeovers helped him obtain what was initially only a summer internship.

His first day happened to be the day President Ronald Reagan rang the opening bell. The exchange was then an open-outcry market with roughly 7,000 people on the floor, and Tuchman says he immediately loved its noise, chaos and adrenaline.

The 1987 crash became Tuchman’s first major test under extreme pressure. He was still a clerk, working with paper orders, more than 100 telephone lines and DOT machines that continuously printed small customer orders.

Black Monday overwhelmed the exchange’s manual trading infrastructure. Tuchman recalls orders pouring out faster than they could be processed, while independent “$2 brokers” lined up to receive stacks of orders and carry them into the trading crowds.

Tuchman remembers the 1987 crash principally as a scene of desperation and fear. He cites Digital Equipment falling from roughly $168 to $40 in one day and the Dow losing about 608 points, an enormous percentage decline for the market of that era.

His response to the crash helped establish the way he would operate for the rest of his career: do not freeze when conditions become chaotic. He believed every order still had to be handled correctly because execution errors could be financially costly, even while everyone around him appeared terrified.

Tuchman says adversity tends to sharpen rather than paralyze him. He describes himself as someone who runs toward situations requiring “triage” and says the 1987 crash was an early moment when he discovered that quality in himself.

He believes major market collapses often begin from positions of apparent strength rather than after long visible deterioration. He pointed to record highs preceding the 1987 crash, the COVID selloff and later market declines, while emphasizing that the underlying causes of each crash were different.

Tuchman distinguishes genuine crashes from ordinary corrections, selloffs and consolidations. In his view, truly historic crashes have been comparatively rare, including 1929, 1987, the dot-com collapse, the 2007–09 financial crisis and COVID.

Tuchman moved unusually quickly through the old NYSE hierarchy. He began using a seat on April 17, 1988, only about three and a half years after arriving, although he says it commonly took 13–15 years; a retirement, firing and resignation above him created an unexpected opening.

Despite spending his career trading stocks, Tuchman says he personally owned virtually no stocks until recently. Brokerage conflict-of-interest rules restricted him from trading for himself in securities he was handling for customers, and he says keeping his own money out of the market also helped him remain emotionally detached during crashes.

He describes himself as an execution broker rather than a financial adviser. His job is not to decide whether the market should rise or fall but to execute customers’ orders properly, so his own profit and loss is not directly tied to the market’s direction.

That separation between his personal wealth and customers’ trading is central to his explanation for remaining calm. Instead of watching his retirement savings collapse during a crash, he could focus entirely on executing the customer’s business correctly.

After his wife died a couple of years ago and left money, Tuchman arranged a retirement account that he says he does not personally control. He wanted personal investments without creating conflicts with the trading strategy he runs for clients.

Tuchman says he currently trades roughly $500 million to $1 billion of stock per day. His trading system uses credit limits to reject potentially erroneous orders that exceed permitted exposure.

His son is now his trading partner, and Tuchman describes them as the last father-and-son team on the NYSE floor. When Tuchman arrived in 1985, he says roughly 70 market-making businesses operated there and most were family enterprises involving fathers, sons, brothers and uncles.

Tuchman has maintained remarkably long customer relationships. He says his three core customers have been with him for almost 30 years and include a hedge fund, a wealthy Texan and a Texas trading desk, with several smaller hedge funds and proprietary trading firms added later.

One of his longest-standing hedge-fund relationships began with a group of mathematically inclined card players. He says they had attended school together, included a highly ranked Magic card player, and found him because he was regularly walking the floor gathering closing-order imbalances.

Tuchman says the old exchange rewarded deep specialization in individual stocks. Certain brokers stood in the same stock every day and developed an unusually detailed understanding of the order flow; he cites IBM specialist Brian Yunker as someone who could keep track of what perhaps 100 traders around him were holding.

That specialized knowledge made particular brokers trusted execution points. If another broker received an order in a stock such as Philip Morris, Tuchman says they might hand it to the specialist who already understood the crowd and its outstanding orders.

Tuchman says Jordan Belfort personally came to the NYSE and tried to recruit floor brokers into front-running customer orders. According to Tuchman, Belfort offered brokers about $1 million to buy the first 5,000 shares for him before executing a large customer purchase, then sell another 5,000 after the customer’s buying had lifted the price.

About eight brokers accepted Belfort’s proposal, according to Tuchman. He says the FBI ultimately removed them from the trading floor in handcuffs and that several spent more time in prison than Belfort himself.

Tuchman uses the Belfort story to illustrate why customer-order information is heavily protected. Buying for yourself because you know a large customer order is about to move a stock is classic front-running and, as he describes it, one of the clearest conflicts of interest in brokerage.

He also warns that modern social-media “pump and dump” schemes are essentially updated versions of older Wall Street frauds. A promoter accumulates cheap shares, persuades followers to buy, then sells into the demand the promoter created.

Tuchman believes COVID permanently changed who could participate actively in markets. He describes Robinhood, Webull and similar platforms as opening an industry that had once felt exclusive to virtually anyone with a smartphone and a small amount of money.

He links that democratization with stimulus money, lockdowns, Reddit, WallStreetBets, Roaring Kitty and the meme-stock phenomenon. He cites GameStop’s extraordinary rise and collapse as the clearest example of millions of new traders suddenly concentrating on Wall Street.

Tuchman believes most of the first wave of inexperienced COVID-era traders lost money, but he also thinks a smaller group became genuinely sophisticated. He argues that a new generation of retail traders has developed enough discipline and skill to become what he calls “smart money.”

He works with Apex Trader Funding, which he describes as a simulated proprietary-trading operation that gives aspiring traders access to capital and trading opportunities. He views such platforms as another way traditional barriers to trading have fallen.

Tuchman sees particular aptitude among traders now in their late teens and 20s who grew up playing video games. He believes their comfort with screens, keyboards, rapid information processing and repeated decision-making translates naturally into electronic trading.

He says some young traders he has mentored now earn hundreds of thousands of dollars per month. He also claims individuals who first encountered his videos at ages 12 or 13 are now in their 20s and earning as much as $20 million annually.

His answer to whether an ordinary trader can beat the S&P 500 is qualified rather than categorical. He believes a responsible, disciplined and consistent day trader who follows strict rules can potentially do it, while acknowledging that many retail traders instead destroy their accounts.

Tuchman repeatedly warns against trading with money needed for ordinary life. He says someone should not quit a job or risk the last $5,000 needed to support a family in the hope that trading will rescue them financially.

His basic investing philosophy is “invest in stocks, not stuff,” although he explicitly says the phrase originated with another NYSE market maker. Tuchman uses his larger public platform to spread the idea but does not claim authorship.

He tells young investors to study the products and brands already dominating their own lives. Sneakers, phones, computers, restaurants, entertainment and social platforms can identify businesses worth researching because consumers themselves often see changing habits before professional investors do.

His iPhone example is deliberately simple: repeatedly buying the newest phone creates a drawer of depreciating devices, while directing some of that money into ownership of the company could build an asset. He used the same logic with brands such as Nike and other products people repeatedly buy.

Tuchman says familiarity with a product should be a starting point, not the entire investment thesis. The company should still be investigated and financially sound; recognizing a popular brand is not a substitute for due diligence.

He advocates beginning to invest even with small amounts rather than waiting until someone feels financially sophisticated. He repeatedly cites an illustration in which investing $250 per month in the S&P 500 from age 18 to 60 grows to roughly $1.4 million, and says even $5 or $10 regularly can begin building the habit.

The larger point of his S&P example is behavioral: consistency matters more than finding a spectacular trade. He contrasts regular investing with money casually spent on coffee, gadgets and other consumption whose value quickly disappears.

Tuchman says impulse buying can often be defeated simply by delaying the purchase. His practical suggestion is to walk around the block, eat some chocolate or otherwise wait for the urge to pass, then consider directing the money toward an investment instead.

He believes investors often focus too much on the obvious headline company and overlook the businesses supplying it. His preferred research method examines secondary and tertiary beneficiaries—the chips, minerals, power systems, infrastructure and other components required to make the final product possible.

AI is his main example of this “picks and shovels” approach. Instead of looking only at a company such as Nvidia, he suggests studying GPU supply chains, data centers, electricity demand, materials and other businesses that become necessary as AI expands.

Tuchman credits technology analyst Dan Ives with influencing this way of thinking. He says Ives identified important technology trends early and helped him understand how secondary and tertiary trades can emerge around a larger theme.

Energy is one area Tuchman expects to become increasingly important to AI infrastructure. He argues that expanding data-center capacity requires enormous electricity generation, making power infrastructure a potential constraint as well as an investment theme.

Tuchman says he is working with Argentum, which he describes as a marketplace for GPUs founded by entrepreneur Andrew Sopko. He uses the company as an example of businesses emerging around scarcity in computing infrastructure rather than around consumer-facing AI products themselves.

He also points to Thomas Healy and Hyliion as an example of a company radically changing direction when its original market weakened. Tuchman says Hyliion’s electric-truck story initially drove its shares from about $10 to $60 before enthusiasm collapsed and the stock fell toward $2.

According to Tuchman, Healy then redirected the business toward power generation for data centers. He describes the company acquiring technology for a 3D-printable generator and says the stock subsequently moved from roughly $2 to $8 over several months while the company pursued major contracts.

The Hyliion story reinforces one of Tuchman’s strongest personal beliefs: survival often depends on pivoting rather than defending an obsolete plan. He applies that principle both to companies and to his own career as technology transformed floor trading.

Tuchman says good market information is widely available, but separating useful sources from promoters requires work. He recommends listening to knowledgeable specialists, reading public filings and independently checking the claims rather than simply following news headlines.

He specifically praises analyst Dan Ives, Jim Cramer and the market commentator known as “Liquidity.” He identifies Liquidity as Henry Medina and says Medina’s morning newsletter gives him a quick overview of mergers, acquisitions and other developments.

Tuchman also speaks positively about Wall Street Trapper as an example of someone who rebuilt his life through financial education. He recounts Trapper learning about markets while serving a long prison sentence and later building wealth and a large financial-education audience.

David Meltzer is another figure Tuchman calls a mentor. He describes Meltzer as having made and lost an enormous fortune in sports management, gone bankrupt, rebuilt his life and later focused heavily on gratitude and service.

Tuchman’s own near-death experience during COVID became a major personal turning point. He says he contracted COVID on March 15, 2020, suffered a fever around 103.7°F for almost eight weeks, was told he had three months to live, lost a substantial portion of his left lung and experienced collapse of his cervical spine.

During the worst part of the illness, he says he was isolated alone in a sealed apartment with little besides his phone connecting him to other people. Online content and people he encountered through it became part of how he kept himself emotionally engaged while seriously ill.

Tuchman’s public profile has since grown far beyond the trading floor. He says people from children to retirees recognize him, describes an audience ranging roughly from ages eight to 80, and says fame has permanently changed his daily life.

He recounts five students from an elite Swiss school waiting roughly five hours outside his hotel in Sardinia after learning he was there. He gives the episode as an example of how unexpectedly global interest in markets—and in his own persona—has become.

He says even ordinary subway rides now frequently turn into conversations with strangers asking about stocks. Rather than resent the attention, he says he enjoys having the platform because it gives him greater reach for financial education.

His advice for gaining an informational edge is to move beyond the headline after it becomes obvious. By the time a dramatic story is everywhere, he argues, much of the market move may already have happened; investors should investigate less obvious suppliers, constraints and related businesses.

He summarizes that danger with the market saying “buy the rumor, sell the news.” He says late-arriving retail traders often buy at the moment excitement and volume are greatest, which is why spectacular momentum stories can leave so many people holding losses.

GameStop and Rivian are his examples of FOMO turning into permanent losses for late buyers. He says he still encounters investors who bought GameStop around $483 or Rivian around $92 because they assumed the rally would continue indefinitely.

His concise rule is that “FOMO, hype and hope” are not sustainable trading strategies. Research, discipline and risk management must replace emotional conviction once real money is involved.

Tuchman has personally seen greed destroy traders who were already sitting on enormous profits. His definition of destructive greed is not wanting to make money; it is refusing to lock in gains because every additional dollar begins to feel necessary.

He says he was offered a job connected with Ivan Boesky immediately before Boesky was indicted. Tuchman describes Boesky as appearing uncannily able to anticipate takeovers until it emerged that he was receiving inside information.

The dot-com bubble provided Tuchman with one of his clearest lessons about taking profits. He recalls Yahoo soaring from only a few dollars into the hundreds while traders around him watched their paper wealth explode and assumed it would continue.

When the bubble collapsed, many people who had looked rich on paper were suddenly back where they started. Tuchman remembers trader Frank Murphy being unusually cheerful because Murphy had repeatedly bought and sold Yahoo at progressively higher levels rather than holding everything indefinitely.

Tuchman says Murphy told him those repeated realized gains had produced roughly $20 million even though Yahoo eventually collapsed. That episode became the basis for Tuchman’s recurring rule that “nobody went broke taking a profit.”

His preferred trading style is deliberately unglamorous: repeatedly hit singles and doubles instead of constantly swinging for home runs. He believes traders seeking spectacular scores may occasionally succeed but are much more likely to eventually surrender their gains.

Stop-loss orders are central to his risk-management teaching. In his example, someone buying 100 shares at $50 might place a stop around $49.50 so that an unexpected event costs roughly 50 cents per share instead of allowing a much larger loss.

He also teaches taking partial profits quickly and then moving the remaining stop to break-even. The purpose is to transform a winning position into one that can continue higher without putting the original capital at the same degree of risk.

Tuchman and longtime colleague David Green run the Wall Street Global Trading Academy. He says they began their Wall Street careers together and now teach thousands of students around the world, emphasizing discipline, consistency and practical risk management.

Asked directly about the highly anticipated SpaceX IPO discussed in the episode, Tuchman refused to make a simple buy-or-avoid call. He said the uncertainty was itself the important answer and preferred to explain the forces that could drive the stock in either direction.

He described the proposed SpaceX valuation as extraordinarily aggressive relative to conventional public-company multiples. In the figures cited during the conversation, he discussed an indicated price around $135, a valuation around $1.75 trillion and roughly $20 billion in revenue, calling the valuation highly “frothy.”

At the same time, he argued that scarcity and extraordinary public demand could overwhelm conventional valuation logic in early trading. He speculated that a limited supply of shares could produce an opening price many times above the indicated IPO price.

Tuchman therefore favored observing the stock after it began trading rather than feeling compelled to capture the first possible price. His reasoning was that if the long-term story were genuinely strong, paying somewhat more after gaining useful information could be preferable to blindly chasing an unprecedented launch.

He repeatedly warns traders not to “catch a falling knife.” He would rather see momentum and evidence of support before entering than buy solely because a stock has fallen dramatically from an earlier price.

Tuchman also discusses IPO lockups as an important source of later supply. Employees and early investors commonly face restrictions on when they can sell, meaning the market can change when previously unavailable insider shares eventually become eligible for sale.

The NYSE itself was once structured around approximately 1,300 exchange seats, which Tuchman compares to taxi medallions. The limited number made seats valuable assets whose prices moved with the fortunes of Wall Street.

When Tuchman arrived, he remembers a seat costing around $183,000. He says he never owned one himself and always leased, despite twice coming close to buying—once around $187,000 and another time around $1.2 million before being outbid.

Being admitted to the floor was once a major social and professional milestone. Brokers were sponsored by firms, their families attended, and new members signed a historic book containing names associated with earlier generations of Wall Street, including J.P. Morgan and Carnegie.

Tuchman’s son Benny later went through the same signing ritual. Comedian George Lopez happened to be filming an episode of A&E’s Very Superstitious at the exchange that day, turning the family milestone into part of the program.

The traditional route onto the floor started at the very bottom. Tuchman says he began as a runner/teletype worker earning about $47 per week in a blue jacket, then had to establish enough trust to become a clerk before a brokerage would eventually give him a trading opportunity.

Tuchman’s exchange badge number is 588, which he says he has carried for roughly 37 years. He considers the number lucky and jokes that the symbolism becomes less convincing whenever headlines show the Dow falling exactly 588 points.

Technology has reduced the NYSE floor from roughly 7,000 people in Tuchman’s early career to about 700. Jobs once performed by large numbers of clerks, runners and brokers can now be handled electronically; he says his system can transmit roughly 1,000 orders in four seconds.

The old trading floor functioned almost like a self-contained town. Tuchman recalls an on-site hospital, tailor, barber and restaurant alongside the thousands of financial workers needed to operate a paper-based market.

Many floor workers disappeared because the work itself disappeared, not simply because individual firms failed. Tuchman says some retired while others struggled to find a new role because they could not adapt their skills to an electronic market.

Tuchman sees his own longevity as a product of repeatedly reinventing himself. His attitude is that hitting a wall should trigger a search for another route rather than an attempt to recreate a vanished business model.

He does not expect the traditional NYSE floor workforce to return to its former size. New floor brokers and seat holders are now rare, and he says the profession is viable for existing specialists but is no longer a large entry-level career path.

Tuchman nevertheless argues that human execution still has value even in an overwhelmingly electronic market. He believes clients sometimes need judgment at the exact point an order is executed, particularly when markets become disorderly or unusual.

He recently made that case to senior representatives of brokerage firms in Asia. According to Tuchman, many of them had not fully appreciated the execution advantage a human floor broker could still provide.

The disappearance of floor jobs does not mean finance jobs generally are disappearing. Tuchman distinguishes the shrinking trading floor from careers in trading desks, portfolio management, financial advice and other parts of the industry.

He says State Street recently told him the United States faces a significant shortage of financial advisers. According to Tuchman, the firm wants to recruit heavily and asked him to help communicate to young people that AI has not eliminated the opportunity to build a career in finance.

His final advice to younger people had little to do with stock selection. He said to be kind, practice gratitude, avoid burning bridges, search for joy, find work you love, become extremely good at it and have fun while doing it.

Tuchman says his parents were Holocaust survivors who lost their families before rebuilding their lives in America. That family history strongly shapes the way he thinks about success and what ultimately matters.

His father, whom Tuchman describes as a humanist, taught him that relationships and direct human connection mattered more than “cash and prizes.” Tuchman says the handshake, the relationship and the effect one person has on another are ultimately more important than accumulated wealth.

Tuchman therefore wants his legacy to be measured by people he positively affected rather than by the money he traded. He says that if even one person—and hopefully tens of thousands—can say his example helped them find meaningful work, become better at it and live with more joy, he will consider that enough.