Stockbrokers Charles E. Spooner and Oscar E. Skinner kept an eye on the ticker tape through the Great Depression, so they know how bad the market can get and when it can’t get any worse.
Take it from 130-years of combined investment experience: Today’s market is nothing to worry about.
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“We have been through so much we don’t get scared anymore. This market is going to turn itself around soon just like it always has,” said Skinner, who is a month shy of 91.
The two very, senior brokers at Barrett & Company have advised investors not only through the Depression, but recessions and what the two simply call ‘the better times.’
“Up until three months ago these were the better times, but that growth could not last forever. Historically, it was never so good,” Skinner said.
“Based on history you can also expect the market to steady itself.”
Each morning Skinner and his long-time colleague and friend Spooner, who turns 84 next week, take their places in two corner offices overlooking Weybosset Street. It’s a view they are quite used to. The two stockbrokers started their careers at about the same time in the early 1930s at Bodel & Co., the largest brokerage firm in Providence at the time, which was housed in the building that abuts Barrett & Co.
It was a time when a million traded shares, not hundreds of millions, was a good day and when a couple points up or down on the market raised eyebrows. Skinner jumped on board in 1931 right out of Brown University, where he was an economics major and star tackle for the football team. Spooner joined Bodel five years later after graduating from the University of Rhode Island with a degree in economics. Bodel was a logical choice for Spooner, whose father also worked there.
“I would always see Charlie in the office while he was in college,” Skinner said.
Spooner quickly added, “Yes, asking my father for money. That’s why I was there all the time.”
The two brokers were welcomed to the business during an uninviting time.
“In 1933, I remember walking down the hill from the office and everyone was very somber. I said ‘what’s wrong.’ They told me all the banks were closed (temporarily) in America,” said Skinner, describing President Roosevelt’s emergency action after he took office that year in a successful effort to stabilize the banking system. “Nobody had money.”
It was during the worst of years when Skinner and Spooner became friends and had the challenge trying to build a client list when people were tired of or terrified by the market.
“It was 1937 the year things started turning around,” said Spooner. “Everything was just so damn lousy that things had to get better.”
What was then hot stocks are flops today and the big products of today were not even imaginable.
“The top stocks then were the railroads and utility stocks, which are now at the bottom,” said Skinner. “They didn’t have airplanes (extensive and reliable passenger airline service) back then so the railroads were important.”
Spooner said the high technology companies that flood the market today were simply nonexistent.
“Computers have been the most astonishing thing. They can do anything. That’s why they have become a major force on the market,” Skinner said.
Nationally, they watched and advised investors on the growth of General Electric, which they said had the most rapid and consistent growth of just about any company. Here in Rhode Island they remember the start of business powerhouses. Industrial Trust Company of Providence grew up and moved to Boston, and today is called Fleet Financial Group, among the top banks in the country.
“And back in 1939 the Textron operation started (considered to be the nation’s first conglomerate). I don’t think we would have ever guessed that they would grow like it did. It’s the progression just like a lot of other companies experience,” said Spooner.
In the same respect, they say one-time global companies and nearly entire industries disappeared in Rhode Island.
“Gorham Manufacturing, just about the world’s largest silver manufacturer, is gone (from Providence, the name and product distribution endure in Smithfield). So are (most of) the textile mills, which at one time ran from Woonsocket to West Warwick,” said Skinner.
All the changes led to a completely new terrain.
“If we had a million shares volume on the New York Stock Exchange it was a good day. Now we have 5 million and 6 million. It’s fantastic,” Skinner said.
The two stock brokers worked side by side during their 60-year-plus career with the exception of four years Skinner served in the Navy during World War II and when they went to different brokerage firms briefly in the 1960s and 1970s. Spooner left Bodel, which was then owned by G. H. Walker & Co., to manage the Providence office of Estabrook Co. in 1967. Then in 1970 he became a partner at Barrett & Co. and started recruiting his good friend away from their first employer, which by that time was owned by Merrill Lynch.
“I was trying for several years to get him over here. And then in 1976 he came over and we welcomed him with open arms,” Spooner said.
Having four or five decades on many of their peers today gives them an insight into historical trends, but both agreed that the “young kids” are well prepared.
“They are so well informed today, because of computers and through all the information available today,” he said.
Skinner’s and Spooner’s words of wisdom on being a good broker sounds like advice a mother would give.
“Be honest,” said Spooner. “After doing business with a client for a number of years, you know more about their business than their family does. They trust you.”
He said that the trust clients have in their broker’s knowledge and opinion is the reason the profession will survive despite the advent of discount and online brokerage companies.
“People want somebody to talk to. They want input,” he explained. “They’ll ask all types of questions that don’t even have anything to do with securities.”
