Aug

19

My father was a commodities trader and small business owner. When I was 12 years old I would call out prices to him from the WSJ as he worked. He did everything in his head and could come up with deep calculations without writing them on paper. I followed a lot of stocks and stock options for him. At night he would sit and read Barron's, Fortune, Business Week, numerous farm journals, Popular Science, and many others. Usually if I walked into Dad's reading room, I saw an open newspaper first, and then Dad would let half the paper droop and peak out to see me. When cable TV came out, Dad had it installed at the business — it was locked on the finance TV channel. He would make me watch and try to get the occasional quote for him. Once I called out a bogus quote on purpose — to get him excited. I never pulled that one again.

My father sparked an interest in me that I would not realize till many years later — unfortunately he died young, before I graduated from college and before I realized that trading would be a part of my life. He passed before the 87 crash, after a long illness and got out of everything related to stocks and put everything into US treasuries. He told me something bad was going to happen, and didn't trust the "portfolio insurance" concept that was bandied about as the key to everything.

He did teach me all I would need to know in life — principles, honesty, gut instinct, gladness, going above and beyond for people and love. The building blocks for my life were laid piece by piece as I worked with my father at his business.

I always worked as a kid — paper routes, Dad's place, shoveling snow, retail. In college I had the highest paying job on campus (Advertising Manager of the school newspaper) — I held the job for three years straight including summers and paid my way through college. Graduated with a BA, English, poetry minor. I was the president of the college Chess Club. Never really made it out of the 1700s USCF, but I played a lot of games.

Got a real business education in the Insurance industry. Worked in underwriting management for a Fortune 500 company right out of college. I was hired during the recession of 1990 not because I was a college grad, but because I had practical business management experience from my college job. I would read the WSJ and Barron's cover to cover every day — at first I didn't know exactly what everything meant, but gradually I learned.

My "I gotta learn this market stuff moment" came when I watched the Desert Storm attack — watching oil move higher and higher as the days counted down to the attack deadline was fascinating to me. I was programmed. I really believed that oil would explode up on the day of attack — when oil swooned I was stymied. Down was up and up was down. I started to read market books by the dozen. Mom gave me Dad's books from the 60s and 70s for starters. I also had money to invest and I didn't want to lose it. What to do, what to do?

I got hooked up with a broker who did Elliott Wave, Prechter stuff, and fractals. I made up my own systems and on my first trade I used the new long term LEAPs product. I figured why not get the leverage but not get hacked by time decay. My first trade was a great success (oh no!) as I rode CEO Stempel 's GM and some nice LEAP puts from the forties under thirty — and I just let this trade run over many months. My broker was ticked because he wanted to churn me, but I didn't know it at the time. My big mistake was not going long GM calls. My other big mistake was listening to this broker and not just doing the trades I liked. I quit this broker after realizing that he was polluting my mind.

It had been me learning as I go from this point on. I quit my Fortune 500 job after seven years to trade on my own. Six months out and things got rough for me and I had to start a small web business to make ends meet — still do this on weekends and nights — very flexible enjoyable work.

I read Education of a Speculator and loved it. Yes that broker I had was a "hoo" in many ways. So now I trade actively, but not day trade — short (weeks), medium trades — long pulls on trends. I like learning. My father's best advice: "Do the opposite of the central banks." Favorite line from Jim Rogers: "When an asset is not loved and is just lying in the corner with dust on it, go ahead pick it up and put it in your pocket." Best learning from Trader Vic: "Make sure you know who is going to pay you when you win your trade."


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