Markets guru Art Cashin, UBS Financial Services' director of floor operations at the NYSE, is a legend on the floor of the Big Board.
Cashin grew up in New Jersey and went to work on Wall Street right after his high school graduation.
He's been on The Street for nearly 50 years and he's wellknown for his daily newsletter Cashin's Comments. He also makes frequent appearances on financial television to talk about the markets.
This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in.Cashin's life story is about a hard working kid who didn't go to college because he had to support his family.
Today he's one of the most respected to figures in finance.
Cashin grew up in northern New Jersey. He comes from a humble background.
Cashin attended Xavier High School in New York City on a full scholarship.
The parish pastor paid for his uniform.
Source: Xavier High School via YouTube
Instead of putting where he was going to college in his yearbook he simply listed 'working.'
Cashin graduated from the Jesuit all-boys Xavier High School in 1959.
In his senior yearbook, where it said what college the student was attending, above Cashin's name it just said "working".
In 2010, he was inducted into the Xavier High School Hall of Fame.
Source: Xavier High School
He started on The Street right out of high school in 1959 just a few months after his father died.
Cashin's father passed away a few months before he graduated, so he found a job to help is mom make ends meet.
He started on Wall Street as an assistant clerk at Thomson & McKinnon in 1959.
Source: Xavier High School
Cashin almost left Wall Street to become a famous folk singer.
Cashin was in a folk singing quartet in the 1960s, and the group auditioned with ABC Paramount Records.
The audition went very well, and they were told that if the guy that ABC had just signed didn't work out, that they would get to create the next record.
The guy that ABC Paramount had just signed was Ray Charles.
Source: Xavier High School via YouTube
After just five years on Wall Street, he was a partner at his firm and one of the youngest traders to ever earn a seat at the NYSE.
After five years on the trading floor, Cashin was made partner at P.R. Herzig & Co. in 1964.
At just 23 years old, Cashin was one of the youngest traders to ever have a seat at the NYSE.
Source: Xavier High School
Cashin joined Paine Webber in 1980 as an institutional floor broker.
In 2000, Paine Webber merged with UBS.
Source: Xavier High School
Cashin is big into charity. He even created a program to feed hundreds of families on holidays.
On Thanksgiving day in 1982, there was a news broadcast from a New York homeless shelter that showed a family that was unable to sit together for dinner because there was not enough space. He decided to make sure that the family could eat Christmas dinner together.
Cashin and his fellow floor brokers got together to sponsor about 400 family turkey dinners cooked by the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center, the famous Windows on the World.
Source: Xavier High School
The fund he created in 1982 now feeds hundreds of thousands of people during the holidays.
Soon after delivering the first dinner in 1982, Cashin founded the Exchange Christmas Dinner Fund. In 2006, the fund fed over 185,000 people.
Source: Xavier High School
His wife passed away in 1998 after a long battle with cancer.
Source: Xavier High School
On the morning of 9/11, he walked through the World Trade Center twice.
On the morning of 9/11, he watched the attacks unfold on the TV screens of the NYSE.
Soon after the second plane hit, he and his son Peter, who was working at the NYSE at the time, took a small boat across the Hudson River to New Jersey.
They had made it out of the financial district alive, but both were covered in ash as they returned to Cashin's Jersey City home.
Source: The NYFP via YouTube
After experiencing the attacks of 9/11, he's gone to great lengths to help the many victims.
He currently chairs the NYSE Fallen Heroes Fund which distributes money to families of NYPD and FDNY members who lost family in the attacks.
Since 9/11, the fund has distributed more than $6 million.
Source: Xavier High School
He now monitors UBS traders at the NYSE and is constantly appearing on financial television.
Today, Cashin is the director of floor operations at the NYSE for UBS. UBS has over $612 billion in assets under management.
Source: King World News
Cashin is typically featured live on CNBC from the NYSE a few times per week.
Cashin is always talking to the reporters from the floor of the NYSE.
He offers 50 years of stock market wisdom and his personality is made for TV. Reporters know that they can ask him any question about the market because he's basically a walking stock market encyclopedia.
Source: CNBC
His daily newsletter, Cashin's Comments, is read by over 100,000 people daily.
While at UBS, Cashin served as a broker and is now the director of floor operations at the NYSE.
He has become famous for his market commentary and his daily newsletter, Cashin's Comments, which is read by over 100,000 people every day.
Source: Xavier High School
In his must-read newsletter, he never forgets to include a piece of trivia.
With every Cashin's Comments, he usually includes a math, history or logic question. Many of these questions are nearly impossible to solve and are very frustrating. He makes the reader wait until the next issue of Cashin's Comments to discover the answer.
Here are some of the best trivia questions that Art has asked.
He still knows how to keep NYSE floor traditions alive.
On Christmas Eve every year, Cashin leads the NYSE traders singing "Wait 'Till the Sun Shines, Nellie".
It is appropriate that the man who's been on the trading floor the longest, leads the celebratory traditions for the younger folks.
Besides singing with the traders and eating fine steaks, it has also rumored that he's a huge fan of fine scotch.
Source: Ticker Forum, NYSE via YouTube, Business Insider
And, if you want to meet the legend, he's a common visitor to the NYSE's neighbor, Bobby Van's Steakhouse.
Source: CNBC
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