And the hits just keep coming

limos gone, traders clamor for rides back home

With bonuses slashed to the bone, the financial boys are suffering

Massive layoffs and diminished bonus checks promise to put a crimp in the high-flying styles of stock brokers, money managers, investment bankers and once-untouchable hedge-fund geniuses. Bloomberg BusinessWeek described Wall Street as being in “retrenchment mode.” Thousands of layoffs either came or are coming and bonuses — the cash that turns brokers and bankers into big spenders — will reportedly be a fraction of last year’s.

Many who have kept their jobs have seen bonuses slashed nearly in half.

“Wall Street is the only industry where a seven-figure bonus is considered morally and financially insulting,” Robert Frank, wealth correspondent for CNBC and author of “Richistan,” told The Post. “I’ve heard from people getting $3 million bonuses and they are screaming at their bosses, threatening to leave — the cuts are meaningful to them. And the bosses are responding, ‘Leave to go where?’ All firms on Wall Street are dealing with the same bleak, financial landscape.

This is Pain

“Starting four months ago, every Wall Street guy I know tightened up. The St. Bart’s vacation got cut back by a day. The Aspen trip is done with one less girlfriend in tow,” a Manhattan-based restaurateur told The Post. “Most Wall Street guys don’t want to be on Wall Street forever. They want to quasi-retire, invest in hotels and bars and restaurants, and make money by being involved in fun, social things. But you need scratch to do it. So those dreams are suddenly deferred.”

“The junior managing director who just lost his job or had his bonus slashed, he’s not helicoptering to the Hamptons or flying private,” said Mike Giordano, a partner with Cirrus Aviation Services, a private jet charter company. “Now, they’re flying first class and driving to the Hamptons. They’re not renewing memberships in private jet clubs. Those run at least $15,000 in fees and around $5,000 an hour to use the plane.”

[The aforementioned restaurateur } added that there’s a trickle-down effect that doesn’t just hit high-end restaurants. “My stripper and escort friends are feeling it. The guys in New York are being less generous,” said the restaurateur. “A lot of sex workers have gone down to Florida where there is more money.”

Of course, there’s always Davos, but the last development may see the old Showboat return to Greenwich and replace L’Escale and its higher-priced ladies. Certainly, the lower end of Greenwich’s real estate market, the $3-$7 million homes, will suffer:

Manhattan apartment sale contracts dipped 29 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022. “People [who were] thinking of moving from three-bedroom apartments to townhouses are having second thoughts,” Frank said. “They decided not to take the big swing in 2023.

“This will be a tough summer for real estate sales in the Hamptons,” he predicted.

Naturally, the BSDs are still swinging.

Giordano noted, “The big guys are still calling me to buy jets. I have seven Gulf Streams on pre-buy.”

And

“There’s a correlation between Wall Street and yacht sales,” a yacht broker based in Fort Lauderdale told The Post. “But it primarily impacts yachts that are 50-feet-long or shorter. They sell for a million bucks and go up to 7 million. People buying boats that are 60 feet and up, they are not affected. There’s more inventory [than there was last year] of 50-feet and down.”