>> on anthony scare mucci. merry christmas, happy holidays, and welcome to a special edition of "wall street week." >> and i' m gary kaminsky. today we bring you some of the best moments from our interviews with car like on and it rosso. -- du ick rosso. >> this show has never been solely about investments. we talked about anything that affects people and their money.

city, it' s "wall street week." >> three times of capitalism, blue-collar backgrounds, strong work ethic and homes filled with love or just a few the characteristics that these distinguished gentleman share. we begin today show with a look back at how they got their start on wall street. >> i didn' t know what to do . i started studying how you pick stocks and it really hit me how great it was, showing me how to pick these stocks. >> wasn' t going back and reading things about the industry? >> when i got into wall street, i had $15,000, which was a lot saved. i started investing it. in 1961, the market was high. i learned a lot from that. i confused it, and i'

all these stocks, picking this and thinking that. i had a following of people who would listen to me, but everybody was making money. jack came over and he sort of liked me. he said, you are going to lose every penny you have. i' m telling you are through, i was up to about $70,000, which was huge. he said you know what? when this is over, six months, a year, maybe less, you will be negative, everything you ever had. he was right. in three days in 1962, they cleaned me out. i will tell you what i learned from that experience. you have to go through the pain. the market is not a gambling casino, and too many people think it is. especially now with low interest rates. it'

i had a few bucks left, very little, and i set up got to learn something. in those days it was really the wild west, the puts and calls. i was the honest rocher, so just be. -- the honest broker. i would be calling to california and i would give them more than they thought they would get, which they couldn' s a guy i don' new york calling these wealthy guys on these stocks. i will do it for $5,000. the call brokers could not believe it. they said i know you can do it cheaper cost. i built this thing up. by 1968, i was making $800,000 a year, which today is like $10 million. >> when did you start thinking about not just being an investor

>> i had this big following. i had an uncle who had some money, and by that time i had saved a couple hundred grand. he wrote me 200, so i had enough without borrowing. we had $600,000. we worked out the numbers. my uncle' s accountant said you' re crazy to do this. no matter how you do this, with the income you' re going to make from commissions, you have your own seat, you have to have accountants and lawyers. there is no way you can make a penny. he told my uncle, you' re going to loan him 200,000 dollars, he' s putting up his $200,000, you really will lose. i was paying my uncle a real good return on the money plus a piece of the company.

arm. army. when i came back, i said mom, i college. you just spent two years in the army, get a job, you bum . i took a job as a stock exchange stock listing work. i said as soon as i get out i' m going to the trading floor. that' s what i want to do. after about two years i fell in love with what i was doing and never left. >> not finishing college, did that help or hurt? >> it both helped and hurt. opportunities to move up, but i started as an $81 a week clerk. on the time clock. i was a union member, and i

morning, punch in, and i would punch out promptly at 5:00. if iran from 11 wall st to a newly organizing -- if i ran to a newly organizing subsidiary, it became the biggest trust cap in the world. if you got there by 5:14, they paid you for 5:00. if you got there at 5:16, they paid you for 5:30. i would usually work until 11:00 at night. in the summers of 1968 and 1969, the volume on the stock exchange asked loaded. >> what are we trading today? >> close to $7 billion in total. the interesting thing was, when i got my first paycheck, i looked at it, and it was a double paycheck for both the night job and the day job.

have got to be crazy. they just paid me more in one week than i earned in one month as a sergeant in the army. >> how did you get involved in investing in the first place? >> my dear late father-in-law was kind enough to introduce me department. i think we mutually agreed i had had put in a condition they were only hiring mbas, and i did not happen nba. i agree that if they -- i did not have an mba. i agreed if they gave me the job i would go to school at night and earn an mba. i got called back when they pulled the wall around berlin. when i got back from that tour of duty

had the major crash since 1929 in may of 1962. everybody was leaving wall street, and i just said this is the time to go in. this man i worked for was maniacal that the customer never have doubts about what you were telling them. he would always insist that if he and i were going to go see a client on an investment idea, the first thing to tell the client are all the things that are wrong with the idea. and then you say this is everything that could possibly go bad, and this is why i still think you ought to own the stock or the bond. when we left our first meeting, i said jack, why did we do that? he said that client is going to pick up the phone and make a lot of calls.

other possibilities, he' s going to assume we were holding back. nothing is perfect and nothing is certain, but i think with grown-ups, here is the risk and we think the risk is more than offset by the potential reward. i learned that and i also learned, know what you were talking about. anticipate every question the client can have. you are not going to be able to answer them all, but the more you can give them on a given idea, the more likely they are talking about. >> i' m t. >> larry summers. >> andre agassi. >> i' m david portray is. -- i' us. >> iwatch "wall street week."

>> am pleased to be on the new "wall street week." and you should be to. >> imagine a business built on the premise that delivering straightforward financial advice is the right thing to do. rising above the discord of an industry compromise and conflicts of interest. hightower is the new blueprint for financial advice. a legal pledge to put our client' s interest first. not because fiduciary is the s what we were built to do. >> i used to dread getting up and going to work. >> i was tired of being a starving artist. >> he help me create a business

>> i' m here because of score. >> making a company great is and earning rewards. a great company is all about the people. b and the young people in the stock room or the senior executives in the c-seats. >> you look at a company, and you study it, and again, i' d spend five hours at night until 2:00 in the morning looking for companies. you look at it and say this company is amazingly cheap. great assets, but they are not making any money. you look and say, why aren' t you

the reason is not that it isn' t great, it' s the guy that runs it is an idiot. he just should not be there. why can we not get rid of him? ? how are you going to get rid of him? there is no accountability in that company. >> he said this type of thinking is too short-term in nature. i think you disagree with that. t disagree with it fully. i agree that there are activists that really are what i call true activists. i really think guys like us, we

and we make money by cleaning the company up and getting on the board for whatever reason and say you' ve got to do this, this, and this. ve i want go guys get in there. i want to make it clear that there are very good ceos that i respect greatly. tim cook is a great ceo. let me say where i do agree with larry. today -- and it gets me angry -- we are activists, and they get money, they go out to the

that talk on x-y-z, we are not going to rest until the company is sold. that to me is despicable. and worse, then they say icahn is buying it. they call me up for one of these programs and say we hear you are buying it. i like things that are no-brainers. when you really get involved in the market, it is an art, not a science. you build certain instincts, i think. and by the way, part of it is, it sounds funny, but the company you buy in the old days, you knew that it had a certain asset

if you got rid of him, the stock is going to go much higher. >> talk about management and what are the three or four things you like in management? you have an unbelievable i for talent. >> if i have an open mind, i have 380,000 pairs of eyes, 380,000 greens brains, and at understand what the customer needs and wants. for the customer. job well done. payer. great companies really mean great people. you want to go buy a maserati or a bentley?

>> what has worked so great at home depot, if you have to look at three things that make that a great company that would apply to any company, people, number one. that is top on the list. your customer. are you giving the customer real value? enough to know that if the customer wants their money back, they get it back, no questions asked. it is a bond, ok? and everything you do, is this great for the associates, and is this great for the customers? number one is the associate. >> is a lot of stuff you learn from your mom and dad. s simple, it' s basic.

sam walton had f our five and dime stores in arkansas, ben franklin. kmart opened their first kmart in troy, michigan, i believe. sam spent more time in that store, the first kmart store, then cunningham, the ceo. pete cunningham told me that sam spent more time in that store than he did or anybody else did. kmart went bankrupt. walmart is the biggest company in the world today. what was the difference? people. eastman kodak -- bankrupt. why? because the management and the board concluded, we don' t want to do digital photography. guess what, somebody else cannibalized it.

if i am kind to my associate and my associate knows he' s going to be treated fair, he knows if he does a good job, there' s a process in place that allows him to be rewarded and will recognize his effort. it is contagious. >> listening to you, i' m thinking about this. you read these analyst reports about companies. they talk about the margin, they talk about opportunity, very little work is done on wall street actually meeting and analyzing the people. it sounds to me like you think the greatest long-term investments are getting behind the visionaries who see it. you can forget the numbers and focus on the people. >> there' s no exotic science to this, this is pretty simple stuff. does the guy love what he is

does the guy tell the truth? does he know how to reach the customer, and most importantly, is he going to take care of his evil? people will walk through a wall for you if they know you' re going to treat them with respect and reward them properly. and know that you' re going to do their best and they are going to do their best. >> like us on facebook, follow us on twitter and instagram. "wall street week." is sponsored in part by koch industries.

>> wall street can be a dog eat dog kind of world. it' s rare to see true -- two leaders develop a warm friendship. they have had this kind of relationship for almost 35 years. let' s talk about kenny , he was on your board at the new york stock exchange and you have a personal friendship with them.

with ken. >> there was a professional all the way back to the listing of home depot. i referred to him lovingly as the eight lincoln of capitalism. >> why do you use eight lincoln -- abe lincoln? >> in my mind, he was the standardbearer of truth and strength. the strength to tell the truth about what was wrong with slavery, what was wrong in america in that period , and he wanted to change it. there were a lot of people around him who did not want that to happen, but he stood like a beacon. >> how has kenny done that for capital? >> let' s put home depot aside. look at the hundreds of houses of kids that marched into kenny' s office over the past 40 years that he points in a particular direction and says that'

or, you want to be an investment banker? i don' t think you have the talent to be an investment banker. that kind of love and truth, he defines all of the great values that lincoln brought to the leadership of this country. >> what about dick grosso? >> he is the best. look at the exchange today, it' s gone. dick gra understood that listings were criticalsso. -- dick grass understood that listings were critical. >> in 2001 you got the exchange open at a time when america needed it. >> absolutely.

y 2k -- everybody was terrified we were going to blow up. he had driveline dry run

>> they have had long, distinguished careers. here is how they would like to be remembered. >> what is up next for dick g rasso? >> it' s a great question, anthony. i' ve flirted with the idea -- [laughter]

s only in the event anthony becomes the next mayor of the city of new york. do you want to be mayor? >> i' m not sure. i' ve flirted with it in 2013. my hope was that ray kelly was going to run. i think he would have been a fabulous mayor. >> he has a great book out now. >> 300 people, nothing but adoration for ray kelly. when you think about the 12 years that might bloomberg was mayor, and he did a fabulous job, a lot of that would have not been possible without a great police commissioner and a great police force. that' s what ray kelly brought to the city of new york. anthony: you were the most recognized names on the potential opposition for someone like mayor deblasio.

if ray decides he is not going to do that, and there are people who would support me and would like to see me run, i will give it strong consideration. anthony: charlie gast marino wants to be your campaign manager, that' s what i heard. >> charlie has a vested interest. i promised him somewhat tongue-in-cheek that if i were to become mayor, he would become sanitation commissioner. hair, would be a great mayor. would you see things? >> i hope when it' over they can say he made an effort than he found it. that' s all. >> i' d like to be able to do something to change this

have, but i never quite get around to putting the time into it because i' m too busy running the company. i love the country a lot more than a lot of the people of wall street, for sure. >> we are in your camp. >> when i talk about mendacity, there is so much mendacity on wall street. there' s so much almost self-righteousness, and the system that we have, corporate america, it' s dysfunctional because you have no accountability. they are not all bad, i want to make it really clear. a lot of these guys are great and i really like them. we have a lot of good ceos running our companies, but the weight is is so ridiculous , when this market does come down, which it will, it maybe three days, it maybe three years.

down, and then we are going to need real good people running these assets, and we don' t have them. anthony: that' s it for today. from our wall street week family to yours, merry christmas, happy holidays, and the best wishes for a prosperous new year.

priest -- (applause) well, god bless you. it's always a joy to come into your homes. if you're ever in our area please stop by and be a part of one of our services. i promise you we'll make you feel right at home. but thanks so much for tuning in today. thank you again for coming out. i like to start with something funny. i heard about this elderly couple. they had been married for over 60 years. they were at a church fellowship and someone asked them the secret of their success. the man told how he always treated his wife with respect and took her on trips

"in fact, for our 25th wedding