This is the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’s’ largest stock holding

Jordan Belfort is a notorious broker and businessman known for running massive scams, frauds, and other crimes related to stock market manipulation. Indeed, through his brokerage firm Stratton Oakmont, he operated a boiler room and tricked clients with numerous shady schemes before getting arrested and becoming an informant for the FBI.

However, he’s best known for his memoir The Wolf of Wall Street, famously adapted into a movie of the same name in 2013.

Despite incarceration and legal challenges, Belfort has continued his investing career. With contributions from his various ventures, Jordan Belfort portfolio is worth $15 million today. Today, we will discuss Jordan Belfort’s largest stock holding and the potential of such investment in the current market circumstances.

Jordan Belfort before the schemes

Even prior to his notorious financial undertakings, Belfort aspired to increase his wealth. Before college, he earned $20,000 selling Italian ice at a local beach with his childhood friend. He planned to use the money to pay for dental school tuition after graduating from American University with a degree in biology. However, in a welcoming speech, the dental school dean declared that the golden age of dentistry was over and that people looking to make a lot of money had come to the wrong place. For Jordan Belfort, this was enough not to attend.

After a failed meat and seafood business venture, Belfort got a job as a trainee stockbroker at L.F. Rothschild, but the company crashed in 1987. However, the knack for the stock market remained.

Jordan Belfort – The Wolf of Wall Street

Belfort founded Stratton Oakmont in 1989 as a franchise of Stratton Securities, a relatively small broker-dealer. Subsequently, he bought over the entire company and became the largest OTC (over-the-counter) firm during the late 1980s and 1990s. 

However, the operation functioned as a boiler room that pushed penny stocks and defrauded clients with pump and dump stock sales. As it clandestinely amassed fortunes, Belfort’s company at one point employed over 1,000 stock brokers and handled stocks worth more than $1 billion in total.

Belfort himself engaged in a lavish lifestyle of debauchery and abused recreational drugs, including “Quaalude” or methaqualone. The narrative behind the events inspired Martin Scorsese to make a biopic about the company, which included reenactments of the life that Belfort led at the time.

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The downfall of Jordan Belfort

The same year that Belfort founded Stratton Oakmont, the company caught the attention of the National Association of Securities Dealers (now the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority or FINRA). In 1996, the NASD expelled Jordan Belfort’s company from its organization, and in 1999, he was indicted for money laundering and securities fraud.

Belfort made a deal with the FBI to become an informant, wearing a wire against his associates and partners and testifying against his former colleagues. In 2003, he was sentenced to four years in prison and served 22 months in exchange for a plea deal. Furthermore, he was ordered to give back $110.4 million to victims he swindled, most of which he still did not pay back. 

In prison, Belfort shared a cell with Tommy Chong who convinced him to write a book about the whole experience as a stock broker. The two remained friends after prison, and the former broker credited Chong for setting him on his new career path as a writer and motivational speaker.

Jordan Belfort’s portfolio today

Despite his notoriety and criminal history, Jordan Belfort remains an influential figure in finance with a luxurious portfolio. Although he is no longer a stock broker, he has other ventures that provide him with a significant net worth, which is estimated to be somewhere between $100 million and $134 million.

His primary source of wealth (approximately $18 million per year) is income derived from book sales. While The Wolf of Wall Street is Belfort’s most notable work, he has written others, including Catching the Wolf of Wall Street: More Incredible True Stories of Fortunes, Schemes, Parties, and Prison, Way of the Wolf: Become a Master Closer with Straight Line Selling, and The Wolf of Investing: My Insider’s Playbook for Making a Fortune on Wall Street. 

Additionally, he receives handsome compensation for his motivational speaking events, with $30,000 to $75,000 per virtual engagement and over $200,000 for a live conference, which amounts to approximately $9 million per year.

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Furthermore, he owns several estate properties (including a 10,000-square-foot mansion on New York’s East End he resides in), yachts, and automobiles, as well as a substantial cash reserve of over $32 million.

Jordan Belfort’s largest stock holding

Belfort has reached an agreement with the SEC that imposed a permanent ban on his participation in the securities industry. In other words, Jordan Belfort cannot directly engage in stock investing or trading in any sort or capacity and cannot add stocks to his portfolio.

However, he has remained vocal on numerous financial topics, and his latest book, The Wolf of Investing, contains his take on the best investing strategies and decisions and moves investors should take to avoid getting involved in the “sucker’s game.”

In a sort of a U-turn from his former stock practice, Belfort strongly discourages day trading, especially involving individual stocks, and promotes long-term opportunities or growth investing, with the reinvestment of dividends and adding on the positions slowly over time. Specifically, he pointed investors toward the S&P 500 index. 

“Also by adding a little bit of money each month, each quarter, whenever you can… You could start off with little $10,000 or even less and end up in millions waiting for you when you’re ready to retire. And that’s through the process of long term compounding dividend reinvestment and adding a little bit each month to your portfolio. You’re not going to do that by buying individual stocks.”

– Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street

Belfort remains adamant about the U.S. economy’s continued expansion, the stance he derives from his numerous travels and knowledge of different cultures and nations.

“I’ve traveled all over the world, I’ve spoken all over the world, mentored people, and there’s something about the United States, the work ethic, the entrepreneurship. I don’t think we’re going anywhere down. We could go down for a year or two, but I think over the long term, the trend will continue.”

– Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street

How to invest in the S&P 500

One of the best ways to invest in the S&P 500, and the method Belfort himself endorses, is investing in ETFs, specifically the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE Arca: SPY), but also the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSE Arca: VOO) and the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (NYSE Arca: IVV).

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust is among the world’s oldest and most frequently traded ETFs. Founded in 1993, the ETF is managed by State Street (NYSE: STT). SPY strives to replicate the performance of the S&P 500 index, which is composed of the largest publicly traded companies in the United States.

Unlike volatile individual stock holdings and various day-trading price speculations, investing in an ETF like SPY is a long-term strategy that benefits from the overall market growth rather than the individual company’s financial success.

As of April 2024, the top ten of SPY’s stock holdings represent 32.07% of its total assets. These companies are:

SPY stock price today

SPY stock price prediction 2025

Jordan Belfort’s largest stock holding – the bottom line

Jordan Belfort has used his stock broker influence to defraud many investors and accumulate massive amounts of wealth using money laundering and various pump-and-dump schemes. Together with his associates, he tricked people of a total of $200 million, according to the court ruling during his trial. He still owes millions of dollars to the victims of his boiler room.

However, Belfort is today a seemingly changed man, with a career of motivational speaking and some sound financial advice, nearly the complete opposite of what he led his victims to believe during the 80s and 90s. In fact, he pitches long-term investment into the broad American economy represented by the S&P 500 index, which he describes in detail in his newest investment book, The Wolf of Investing. 

Belfort claims that all forms of active investing lead you to the “corrupt casino” of Wall Street with set outcomes and loaded dice you will eventually lose. However, whether you should endorse his ETF investment advice is up to you. Do your own research and check whether such an investment would be a suitable addition to your portfolio.

Disclaimer: The content on this site should not be considered investment advice. Investing is speculative. When investing, your capital is at risk.