In his 54 years as a financial analyst, Richard X. Bove has perfected the art of attracting attention.
Through thousands of newspaper interviews, cable news appearances and radio segments, Mr. Bove transformed what could have been a boring, by-the-numbers career into a flashier one. By delving into the economy and the inner workings of Wall Street, he often defied conventional wisdom and made enemies in the process. To his own recollection, he never turned down a media request; American Banker once called him “the most quoted banking analyst in the country.”
Last week, just hours after completing a spot on Bloomberg television, the 83-year-old announced his retirement. He took this weekend off – and then jumped right back in. In an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Bove (pronounced “boe-VAY”), who goes by Dick, shared a bleak outlook on the U.S. economy and his former economics profession.
“The dollar is finished as the world's reserve currency,” Bove said matter-of-factly, sitting in an armchair outside his office at home north of Tampa, from where he predicted China would overtake the U.S. economy. No other analyst will say the same because, as he put it, they are “monks praying for money” and unwilling to comment on the mainstream financial system in which they are employed.
Many analysts are rewarded for developing unique but inconsequential and “arcane” ideas, he said, peppering his criticism with profanity. Mr. Bove worked at 17 brokerage firms throughout his career.
As he spoke, a technician was trying to restore internet at home after his last employer, boutique brokerage Odeon Capital, pulled the plug on his last day.
Mr. Bove, who began his career before ATMs were commonplace, appeared in the media in the late 1970s when, as a construction industry analyst, he had pessimistic views on houses that did not always pan out.
He quickly shifted his focus to dealing with high finance, which gave him a front-row seat to the savings and loan crisis that bankrupted more than a thousand banks in the 1980s and 1990s. He later described how the surviving banks piled on big bets, which would lead to the 2008 financial crisis and a series of new regulations.
One of Mr. Bove's more famous calls is that he had already identified a “powder keg” in the real estate market in 2005 (true) and predicted that some major banks would quickly get back on their feet afterwards (false). In his 2013 book “Guardians of Prosperity: Why America Needs Big Banks,” he argued that crackdowns on the industry would restrict lending to small businesses.
Now he has changed his tune on the primacy of U.S. banks, particularly after the regional banking crisis last spring. He sees the offshoring of American manufacturing as the ultimate threat to the financial sector and the dollar because “the people who make the goods elsewhere gain ever greater control over the means of production and thus ever greater control over the global economy.” ever greater control over money.”
Mr. Bove was fired twice by major firms, Dean Witter Reynolds and Raymond James, in the first case for being too optimistic about bank stocks. The now-defunct BankAtlantic unsuccessfully sued him over a critical 2008 research report.
The headline of a Times article about this episode called him “The Loneliest Analyst.” That's still true, in part, because he supports cryptocurrency – an area few other financial analysts touch on – which he sees as a natural beneficiary of the dollar's decline.
Many on Wall Street viewed Mr. Bove as a crackpot or an attention seeker — but many others listened. Among those paying attention was Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, whom Mr. Bove generally praises. Mr. Dimon said through a spokesman that he had read Mr. Bove's work to the end and found it “illuminating.”
One who clearly isn't a fan: Brian Moynihan, the head of Bank of America, who hasn't spoken to the analyst in a decade, since Mr. Bove visited the bank's Manhattan headquarters and told executives that it was stupid to expand their investment banking business. (A bank spokesman said the head of investor relations did not recall the conversation.)
Mr. Bove now says he was wrong and is amused that he wasn't invited back.
“I liked being a pain in the ass sometimes,” he said, pausing for effect. “Much time.”
A Queens native who never quite lost his New York accent despite living in Florida for 30 years, Mr. Bove attributes the longevity of his career to an independent streak that includes an unwillingness to read the work of a competing analyst . He readily admits that luck also played a role and marvels at his good health, even though he doesn't exercise regularly and tends to drink top-shelf tequila neat.
He said he made more than $1 million in one year, but otherwise had an average annual salary of $700,000. (CEOs of major banks he oversaw can make more than $30 million a year.) That helped him buy a series of timeshares and invest in a handful of mostly unsuccessful business ventures, including four now-closed pizza restaurants in the Tampa area .
Has he ever tried to bake a cake?
“No, I never did that,” he said. “That was the problem.”
Alain Delaquérière contributed to the research.