Byron Wien, a long-time market strategist who compiled his “Top 10 Surprises” every year during his tenure at Blackstone Inc. and Morgan Stanley Become one of the most influential voices on Wall Street. He is 90 years old.
He died on Wednesday. Wien has been with Blackstone for the past 14 years, most recently as vice chairman of the private wealth business, where he served as a market forecaster for the company and its investors.
“Byron’s life was extraordinary in many ways,” according to a memo distributed to the company by Blackstone Chief Executive Steve Schwarzman and President Jon Gray. “He was always building new relationships and making everyone around him think about future risks and opportunities.”
Chicago-born Wien was orphaned as a teenager but overcame childhood adversity to become a household name in finance, with a career that spanned more than 50 years. He began issuing his forecasts in 1986, when he was Morgan Stanley’s chief U.S. investment strategist. The list has quickly become a must-read, focusing on seemingly low-probability outcomes such as the S&P 500, China’s economic growth and the next U.S. president.
His formula is simple but instructive: Look at something that the average investor thinks has a one-in-three chance of happening, but (for Wien) has a greater than 50% chance of happening. Although his predictions often deviated from expectations, they were widely followed year after year and had the power to move financial markets.
Little shortcomings
“The great thing about the Byron draft, and I’ve been watching Byron for 30 years… is that when he makes a mistake, it really doesn’t cost you anything,” stock picker Jim Cramer told CNBC Zhong said. quack in the street When Wayne announced his surprise 2018. “When he’s right, you make a fortune.”
Wynn continued this tradition throughout his career. In 2009, after a spell at Pequot Capital Management Inc., he joined Blackstone to provide advice to the firm and its clients on analyzing economic, political, market and social trends.
Wien, who came up with the list to differentiate himself from other investment strategists, said Morgan Stanley initially had deep reservations about the idea.
Avoid embarrassment
“They said, ‘Byron, you’ve probably got 10 of them wrong, and you’re going to embarrass the company and you’re going to embarrass yourself. Frankly, we don’t care if you’re humiliated, but we don’t want the company to be embarrassed.” Venn recalled in a profile.
The success of his predictions was mixed. Many times, most of his predictions are accurate. But there are some errors worth noting. In January 2016, Wynn thought Hillary Clinton would become president Her opponent in the election later that year would be Texas Sen. Ted Cruz rather than Donald Trump.
But in some ways, keeping score isn’t the point. Even if Wynn is wrong, he has the ability to provoke and influence Wall Street. In 2002, he said then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan might retire, a statement that did not become a reality until 2006. Still, Wien’s prediction moved the markets and spawned numerous articles about whether Greenspan would step down. .
“I had a string of years, ’93, ’94 and ’95, and I got seven of the 10 years right,” he said. Tell Bloomberg. “Usually I get five or six correct. But I don’t do it for points. I do it to expand people’s thinking.”
Lucky break
Byron Richard Wien was born on February 14, 1933. His father, a doctor, died when Wayne was 9 years old. His mother died when he was 14, and he was raised by her sister while he was attending high school on Chicago’s North Side.
vienna describe He himself was a “nerdy middle-class Jewish kid.” Wynn said he encountered a lucky break when his guidance counselor told him Harvard was looking for bright kids from public schools to balance private school enrollment and asked a student to be interviewed by a visiting admissions officer .
“The guidance counselor called me in and said, ‘Vin’ – they called you by your last name back then – ‘You are our choice. Go downtown and don’t make a fool of yourself.’ That changed my life. . Years later, Venn recalled in Barron’s.
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After earning a bachelor’s degree in physics and chemistry, he went on to earn an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Initially, he worked at an advertising agency in Chicago, but he didn’t like it. He then served in the U.S. Army for two years before accepting a consulting job and being deployed to Nigeria, which he credits with sparking a lifelong interest in travel and developing countries.
In the mid-1960s, Venn moved to New York, where a business school classmate offered him a job at a small investment management firm. Initially, it didn’t go well. By his own account, he lacked the training to be an analyst and was nearly fired. But soon Wien found his way, eventually becoming a partner in the firm.
In 1985, he moved to New York-based Morgan Stanley, where he worked for 21 years. He is famous there not only for his annual lists, but also for his popular monthly strategy articles.
lifetime achievement
In 1998, First Call named him its most popular analyst among readers. Two years later, Smart Money named him the number one strategist. In 2006, New York magazine named Wien one of the 16 most influential people on Wall Street. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Society of Security Analysts.
Wien joined Blackstone in 2009, and while at the firm he traveled around the world meeting with investors, government officials and central bankers.
Venn, a regular commentator in the financial media, was reluctant to miss the company’s global meeting on Monday morning. A tireless networker, he hosts a series of luncheons in the Hamptons every summer to discuss markets, politics and economics.
life lessons
Wayne announced a list 20 Lessons Learned for the first 80 years of his life. These include: traveling extensively, reading constantly, and socializing widely.
The final characteristic is never retiring. As Wien said: “If you work forever, you can live forever. I know there is a lot of biological evidence against this theory, but I will accept it regardless.”
In recent years, he has been working with his successor. Joe Zidle, chief investment strategist for Blackstone’s Private Wealth Solutions business, worked with Wien to develop “10 surprises” 2018. This year, they predict the market will bottom out by mid-year and start to recover, comparable to 2009. The pair also made another prediction: “Elon Musk will put Twitter back on the road to recovery by the end of the year.”
Wayne was married twice. His first marriage to a school teacher ended in divorce, and he later married Anita Walz, chairman of the Observatory Group, a macroeconomic consulting firm in New York.
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