Ten years ago today, for the very first time I stepped in front of CNBC’s cameras to talk stocks and options on their new program Options Action. The illustrious Melissa Lee introduced me, the whip-smart Mike Khouw pushed back on my trade idea and as OA’s creator and long-time executive producer Maxwell Meyers used to say, “the rest is financial news history”. Watch the clip below, it is less than historic, but I remember it being fun, a bit exciting, and a new challenge at a time that was very challenging for many who made their living in the financial markets.
I recall walking out of CNBC’s headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey that evening with the other panelists to a massive party that was well underway, celebrating CNBC’s 20th Anniversary. It was surreal, for the prior twelve years of my career, I had seen all of these faces on elevated TVs on the trading floors that I had worked (no sound obviously) and thought how weird it was to be crossing the so-called streams between finance and financial journalism. There was Cramer, and Faber and Sue Herera, Bill Griffeth, Tyler Mathieson, Bob fricking Pisani (not on the floor of the NYSE) and of course, off to the side, out of the fray sitting on a bench very casually was Mark Haines (RIP), I suspect taking it all in with a sense of pride of what he helped build over the prior two decades.
To this day I recall a comment made by an unsung hero at the network, Mary Duffy, who was also a creator and producer of OA saying to me something like “hey, this is all for you (with a wink)… you did great tonight!” That struck me then and again rewatching the clip today because I kind of sucked, but Mary and Max and Mel (and many others) have always been supportive of me… and here we are probably 500 shows and more than 10 years later still talking the puts and calls, risking less and making more on CNBC on Friday’s at 5:30 pm!
But nobody puts Danny in an options corner. At some point in 2011 Max introduced me to John Melloy the then executive producer of Fast Money, I started sitting in on that desk every so often and became regular sometime in 2012.
It has all been a fun ride, especially given the fact that I’ve never had a good plan of where I was going with my punditry, and to this day I still don’t. But I continue to do it because I enjoy it, I relish Mel’s side-eye, I love dropping the hammer on Guy’s opening take, fighting with Karen over, well anything, telling Mike I’d rather be long a put spread then short his call spread, I LOVE it when Carter “likes my lines”, telling BK that “I’d rather be long bitcoin”, voting Sell on every one of Pete’s Power Pitches (every last one), talking MAGA (yep MSFT, AAPL, GOOGL, AMZN) stocks with Steve and of course “duding” Tim.
Thanks to all of the producers over the years, and current (Diaz who has basically been there from the beginning, Kristin, Bree, Annie, Nia, Tyler) those behind the scenes like D$, the peeps on set helping me find my camera (Nancy & Miles), mic’ing up (Shelly) etc. You guys all rock. And of course, Scott who I became boys with (before Ackman – Icahn brawl) from his many guest hosting gigs! And TRB! Obviously, my parents deserve a special thanks as I think they have probably missed a mere couple dozen OAs over the years. And my wife Sarah who has watched only like 5 in ten years, but thanks for waiting all those Friday evenings to leave town!
So let’s bookend this whole thing, here is our OA crew on my last appearance April 5th.. we’ve done ok, to ten more!
I was supposed to be on Fast Money tonight but I had to cancel, I lost my voice overnight… weird right??
Oh and Happy 30th Anniversary to CNBC!