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In 1999 with Y2K under his belt, Gabe decided to combine his project management and asset raising abilities into an investment brokerage career. After turning down many offers, Gabe finally chose Merrill Lynch as the place to try his hand at this illustrious career. Merrill Lynch had by far the largest retail presence of the wire houses, the deepest product offering, and the training program was phenominal. Aside from regular training sessions in the local branches, Merrill would pay for top performers to attend week long training session at their corporate headquarters and training facility in Princeton, New Jersey. This was a highly competitive position and the competition included many ivy league MBA graduates and financial professionals from Wall Streets finest organizations. Gabe completed the training program in the top of his class.

Merrill Lynch Corporate Headquarters in Princeton, NJ

Gabe would later lament that the secret to building a successful investment book was not your education or financial accumen, (though those are helpful) but your ability to get in front of centers of influence and gain their trust. He'd need that skill, because when he graduated on March 15, 2000 the NASDAQ was at the all time high of $5,132.52. The index never saw that number again. From March 15, 2000 to January 2, 2001, the NASDAQ dropped 55.4%. In October 2002, the NASDAQ dropped to as low as $1,108.49 – a 78.4% decline from its high. In the worst bear market of our time, Gabe was able to raise over $70 million in assets with a phone book and determination. He quickly deduced that some segments of the market would not be affected by the downturn, so he focused his marketing efforts on employees of those firms whose assets were still intact, though their jobs might be in question, and built trust by utilizing the financial strategies used by pension funds. Many clients are comfortable with risk in rising markets, but when your net worth decreases 10% over night, people tend to go with the safe money. Pension plans manage investments in such a way that they are able to sustain downturns in the market while continuing to pay out benefits. They employ a century of market wisdom to develop portfolios that weather the storms, and Gabe was able to show his clients how to accomplish the same risk profile with their funds so they could have confidence in their long term goals being met, despite crisis in the investment markets.