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MICKIE
SIEBERT
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ON MARKETING TO WOMEN
Marketers take us for granted. Women control the money
and buy most of what’s sold in our country today,
but the focus is on Hispanic and other ethnic markets.
ON THE BIGGEST THREAT TO THE ECONOMY
No doubt oil is big, but China is the biggest threat to
the economy. I don’t know how to overcome their price
advantages and our trade deficit keeps growing even as exports
increase.
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ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN...
Blame it on the culture but women face unique issues when it comes
to investing. Often they didn’t get involved in handling money
in the family. Now, thankfully, they’re starting to get knowledgeable
and financially aggressive and unafraid. Women want money to buy
a house or pay for a child’s college, whereas for many men,
money is power and excitement. Women are generally more conservative
investors than men, but that means you get lower returns on your
portfolio.
The observations below come from scrappy Muriel (Mickie) Seibert,
a/k/a, the first woman of finance. (“No one calls me First
Lady,” she notes. “That would be like describing Joan
of Arc as a Girl Scout.”) She was the first woman on the Stock
Exchange and first female Banking Superintendent in the State of
New York.
ON WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE
Where are the women at the top of law and accounting firms? No
question, women are landing in power positions they haven’t
occupied before. But there are still laggard industries.
ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN... ON HOW TO GET YOUR
FINANCIAL HOUSE IN ORDER
Life brings the realization that you’d better know what to
do financially, be it a divorce, problems with credit cards, what
to do with a 401(k) rollover. Write a check to yourself every month,
for your investments—at least as much as you put in the most
expensive clothing you buy. Even if you’ve got a working husband,
invest in your own IRA account, even if it means getting a part-time
job to fund it.
ON LIFE’S GREAT SATISFACTIONS
As banking superintendent I discovered an alarming trend—
people were maxing out their credit cards and using check cashers
instead of bank accounts. “Those who could least afford it
were paying the most.” Siebert decided to do something about
it. She has spent the past several years, and nearly one million
dollars of her own money, developing a personal finance course for
high school students. The 21-lesson program explains the basics,
from balancing a checkbook to reading a pay stub. It is now required
in public high schools in New York City and is being reviewed by
dozens of school boards throughout the country. “I’m
very proud of being the first woman on the Stock Exchange and the
first woman Banking Superintendent,” says Siebert. “But
the earlier pioneer ventures were for myself. Here I can help millions
of people. I want students to think twice before spending all their
money on gum.
ON THE DISADVANTAGES OF BEING A WOMAN
It’s not so much being a woman that’s a disadvantage;
it’s being the first. I couldn’t get anyone to sponsor
my application to buy a seat on the NYSE. I was turned down by nine
of the first ten men I asked. And then the New York Stock Exchange
added the condition that I get a letter from a bank saying they’d
lend me $300,000 of the $445,000 seat price. But banks would not
commit to lend the money until the Stock Exchange would agree to
admit me. It took months to overcome this double-bind. Then, after
I set up a discount brokerage, my long-time clearing house dropped
me instantly: my firm faced SEC expulsion in 60 days if we couldn’t
find another house to clear transactions. It was very “touch
and go.”
WHO IS MICKIE SEIBERT?
In 1954 Siebert, who was born in 1932, dropped out of Western Reserve
University (now known as Case Western) after two years to move from
Cleveland to New York City. She had $500 in her pocket and the determination
to find a career in the stock market. Women were rarities on Wall
Street then and an early interviewer warned her that she’d
need to wear white gloves and a hat in the elevator just as all
the secretaries did.
Finally, she was hired as a trainee research analyst at Bache &
Co ($65 a week salary) and after a time moved on as an analyst at
several other brokerages. Ultimately she became a top industry analyst,
specializing in the aviation and entertainment markets. She later
became a partner at Finkle & Co., as well as at Brimberg &
Co.
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December 28, 1967, she made history by becoming the first woman
to purchase a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. She was the only
femme among 1,365 men. In 1969 she founded her own brokerage, Muriel
Seibert & Co. (now Siebert Financial Corp), and turned it into
the nation’s first discount brokerage firm on May 1,1975,
the first day that NYSE members were permitted to negotiate commissions.
This was after the Securities and Exchange Commission abolished
fixed commissions for stockbrokers. She ran a full-page newspaper
ad picturing her cutting a hundred-dollar bill in half.
Between 1977 and 1982 she took a leave of absence from her firm
to serve as the first woman New York State Superintendent of Banks
under Governor Hugh Carey. Here she was responsible for the safety
and soundness of the banks and other financial institutions in New
York State—overseeing some $500 billion. Despite widespread
bank failures nationwide and because of her strong actions (forcing
struggling banks to merge or reorganize, extracting millions of
dollars from the federal government to make the mergers work, and
getting foot-dragging regulatory agencies to act quickly), not one
institution under her watch failed.
In 1982 she resigned to run for the Republican nomination for the
United States Senate. This was her first campaign for political
office; in the primary she polled second among three candidates.
Eight years later she created the Siebert Philanthropic Program,
through which she shares half of her firm’s profits from new
securities underwriting with charities of the issuers’ choices.
In February 1996, Seibert concocted a creative way to bring her
brokerage firm public. She instigated a reverse merger with J. Michaels
Inc., a defunct, but publicly traded Brooklyn furniture company.
Three years later her firm was ranked the top discount brokerage
firm.
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