When a statistics professor compared summer wages earned by students, he was impressed by Robert Fagenson’s income. Fagenson had worked on Wall Street during the summer, and after his professor showed the comparisons, he knew then that he wanted to pursue a job in the stock market.

“I learned then and there that at that place, that maybe I had a future,” Fagenson said. “I had no dreams when walking out of here that I would be the CEO of a business and working on the New York Stock Exchange floor.”

Fagenson, who graduated from Syracuse University in 1970 with a bachelor’s degree in transportation sciences and finance, delivered the keynote address, titled “The New York Stock Exchange 222 Years Later,” for the Martin J. Whitman School of Management’s annual Whitman Day Wednesday afternoon. Fagenson spoke about how the NYSE flourished and what brought the market to its current state.

For 11 years, Whitman has celebrated the school’s namesake to honor the contributions of Martin J. Whitman in the world of business and management education.

“We celebrate his commitment of time, energy, thought and resources to make the Whitman school what it is,” Whitman Dean Ken Kavajecz said.

Whitman Day started Wednesday morning with a breakfast followed by a panel discussion about the current state of finance and investing led by several financial experts and Martin J. Whitman himself. In the afternoon, there was a student luncheon and Whitman visited many classes. Fagenson led the keynote address, which Kavajecz moderated.

“The New York Stock Exchange has gone over quite a bit of change over the past couple of years and having a perspective of where the New York Stock Exchange started, how it operated, how it has evolved, is something that not everybody can speak to,” Kavajecz said before the keynote address.

Fagenson began his career with the NYSE in 1973 and joined the Board of Directors in 1993. He held the position for six years and eventually became vice chairman in 1998 and 1999, before returning to the board in 2003. Fagenson is currently the co-executive chairman of National Holdings Corp., and is the president and CEO of Fagenson & Co., Inc.

Kavajecz opened the event and introduced Fagenson.

“This is a very important talk for me because I’ve spent my life studying what he does,” Kavajecz said, pointing at Fagenson. “This is the color behind the academics that I’ve been doing.”

Fagenson said that, during its prime, the NYSE held 90–92 percent of the market share for nearly 200 years. It was the greatest market in the world, he said.

He said that Congress accused the business of being monopolistic.

In the early 70s, the Regulation National Market System called for government intervention of the NYSE’s business platform. When the government began to regulate the business, its downfall began, Fagenson said.

The Regulation National Market System changed the nature of stock trading, Fagenson said. At that point, everything that the company had built was threatened, he said.

“That was when I knew that we were going to be challenged like never before,” Fagenson said.

Fagenson spoke with disappointment about the NYSE today. It has been sold to a different company, and Fagenson predicts that it will close in the distant future.

“You can be great for 200 years, but you’re only as good as your last trade,” Fagenson said.

Shortly before concluding his speech, Fagenson expressed hope for the future of business and felt confident that the U.S. can weather financial crisis like it has in the past.

“The greatest part of my job was waking up in the morning and not knowing what was going to happen,” Fagenson said with a smile.

 

Published on April 10, 2014 at 12:55 am