“The longer you’re in the business, the more pessimistic you get,” says Irene Bergman, the 99-year-old Senior Vice-President of Stralem & Co. “I’m able to get bullish, because when I look at a stock, I can imagine where it was 40 years ago.”
Bergman is one of the oldest working professionals in the stock markets, an industry run by men half her age. Even so, she has seen it all. The Great Depression, multiple business cycles, ups and downs, and the global recession of 2008. Her advice and opinions are influenced by her family's post-war experience, where it took them a decade after coming to New York to recover their wealth, because it was frozen by US and Dutch authorities.
Despite being smart about most of her investments, Bergman does recall one she missed out on; Apple Inc. According to her, Apple was "too much for her".
If you want to enjoy a career as long as Bergman's on Wall Street, this is her advice: don't do anything stupid.
Click here to read the full story of Bergman''s journey through Wall Street.