Some of you have heard that I will be launching a new pay site on Monday in partnership with my good friends and partners at Stocktwits and I wanted to go over it in my last newsletter, so here goes.
My day starts around 5am and goes most evenings until about 10 or 11pm. Before market hours I am reading everything and anything about what is happening in the world markets as well as pouring over charts and indicators. It's work, but I'm not complaining, it's truly my passion. After the market closes I spend about an hour looking over every trade I did that day in excruciating detail, it's the only way to learn from my mistakes and helps greatly in preventing a repeat of that same mistake. It's how I try to get better everyday. Try it, it works, you would be amazed at some of the nonsensical things things we do to our own portfolios on a daily basis, even if you are a pro like me. My mantra since college has been "knowledge is power", I have lived by that everyday, know your self and know your business. 80% of traders lose money, I'm one of the 20% that consistently makes money on both an absolute and relative basis. After I review my day, I am back to reviewing charts, the economy, indicators, money flow, hot sectors, cold sectors, moving averages on sectors and indexes, just to name a few. It never ends because in my eyes the market is open 24/7 even though we trade six and a half hours a day.
I was retail broker out of college, I worked at the big firms, you know, all the bankrupt ones, Lehman, Bear Stearns, Kidder Peabody was my first and got taken over by GE. I left retail to start my own "boutiqish" investment banking firm with two friends from Lehman in the mid 90's, within a year I was in three cities, an office in Los Angeles, one in Boston and two in New York City, one downtown and one in midtown Manhattan. I grew it to 400 brokers, 10 traders, 8 analysts and was now included in the selling group of bulge bracket firms like Morgan and Merrill. That firm had a phenomenal run for over three years, the bubble burst in tech and my partner who was running things in LA decided he liked the night life more than keeping the firm together, so I sold my share, the firm collapsed six months later and my ex-partner and friend passed away a few months after that, he was 37 and had it all. That experience in itself would be a career for most people and may be the subject of a great book down the road, we'll see. Brad Pitt just won't take my calls. Bigshot. I will not settle for Affleck.
I then started a capital markets division for a good buddy of mine who I knew at Lehman, he had a nice little firm, mostly institutional trading, but needed a "deal" guy, and that was me. Within a few years we were seeing substantial deal flow, but the entrepreneurial bug was starting to bite again and this time it was a deep seeded desire to start my own hedge fund.
The fund started in 2000, just four of us. We put up our own loot but for the most part it was Communion and Bar Mitzvah money compared to the mega million/billion hedge fund launches of today. We were moving along nicely until a 737 hit us at our North Tower WTC 78th floor office. Our resolve was shaken but not broken, and after a month of down time we relocated to Jersey City on the water, still seeing the smoke from the rubble for weeks on end. We barely skipped a beat, in fact it pissed us off and made us stronger. Through hard work and phenomenal performance we grew it to $500 million within three years. I stress "performance" because that is the ONLY way strangers that you spoke with once or e-mailed once will wire you $20 million. They knew who we were, they found us, even I was blown away with amazement. I sold my share in 2005 and have been running my own money ever since. One footnote, I never had a negative month at the fund and it was right around the time that the bubble crashed, I am probably most proud of that. I was audited by a top 10 firm year in and year out, Madoff's guy was busy.
I went off on a bit of a tangent because I thought you may like to know a little more about me. If you move forward with me, I just should think you should know a little more about the guy who is driving the car. I think most of you already know, but many new folks don't. If you are new, go back to the archives on the blog so you can see some of the picks and predictions over the last year or so. We absolutely crushed this market in the must difficult period in 80 years. I say "we" because your input has been awesome.
What will you get?
1-weekly newsletter, published on Sunday will include picks for the week ahead, could be a range of 3 to 5 names depending on trend, specific entry prices will be given.
2- charts "during" the week, will be annotated for entry, 2 or 3 times a week
3-video, that's where we really peel back the onion, should be great for everyone but certainly educational for newer traders
4-also included, my usual commentary on the day that was, rants, analysis both macro and technical and heavy duty criticism of those that need to be crucified in the financial media.
5-the cost is $59 per month
6- and of course, more surprises along the way.
Best Regards,
Upside
upsidetrader@gmail.com
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