The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me, part 2

I could not find a salaried job, so I had to make due with being a piker stockbroker, getting paid 100% by way of commissions. The only problem: I only had a handful of clients and the market was knifing lower daily.

Despite being a destitute poor guy, I had a little money in the market. A few years prior, using all of my savings (6k), I bought stock in a company called America Online, ticker AMER. I needed money desperately; but I was adamant about keeping AMER, for it was my lottery ticket.

I began cold calling a corporate directory. Actually, I was obsessed with opening new accounts with partners of this prestigious firm. I worked long hours and was buying one stock for almost all of my clients: Beyond.com, ticker BYND. I didn’t know much about the market back then. However, I did get a sense that the LTCM induced sell off was about to end. After all, the internet was brand fucking new and everyone was ecstatic over the potential growth prospects.

Nonetheless, times were tough for me at home. I remember going 3 months without making any money. And, when I did get a pay check, it was so small, it hardly covered my monthly nut, which was only $1,200, including rent ($400), food and travel. At work, I didn’t eat lunch, because I could not afford it. And, I didn’t dry clean my shirts; because, well, that shit was expensive. Instead, my wife washed and ironed them at home. I had two suits, both were purchased immediately after I passed the series 7 examination. I thought, like most new brokers in the business, I was going to make a million dollars, right away.

The summer of ’98 was a long arduous time, for me, and most people in the business. I started to experiment with margin, since my assets were bullshit and my clients believed in my internet stock strategy. Aside from BYND, I was buying SEEK, GCTY, AMER, CMGI, and all of the fun, high growth, albeit death spiraling stocks.

I cannot remember exactly what the catalyst was, maybe a special Alan Greenspan interest rate cut; but the market bottomed in the fall of ’98 and never looked back. My position in BYND, inside of a week, went from $8 to $14. SEEK went from $18 to $30. I could not believe my eyes. I had accounts, fully levered into the teeth of the decline, all of a sudden explode to the upside. One small account, which had been beaten up badly, went from $3,000 to $12,000 in a single day. That same account, eventually, went to $90,000.

My largest account, at the time, was about $250,000. That too, within a week, exploded higher— to north of $400,000.

Basically, I got lucky. I was positioned at the right place at the right time. My new clients thought I was some fucking oracle, nailing one trade after another. I remember going on a 20 out of 20 streak. As a matter of fact, I still have some of my old book pages, where I’d log my trades, to prove it.

At my firm, I became the “go to guy” for hot stock tips. I knew the internet sector inside and out, like no one else, and always knew which stock would take off next. I bought At Home, ticker ATHM, before anyone else heard about them, and enjoyed a 200% run inside of a few short months.

I played them all, from YHOO to AMZN to BCST.

Within 6 months of being told to “throw in the towel,” I was doing $45-50k in monthly production. The money came so fast and furious, frankly, I didn’t know what to do with it. First and foremost, I paid off the $25k in credit card debt that I built up. Then, I bought myself a few nice suits a respectable pair of shoes and a $3,000 watch.

Soon enough, I was given an office at my firm. I was more than happy to leave the boardroom, where pikers talked shit and old men slept. I had big plans. One of them entailed seeking revenge on a certain former asshole sales managers. Trust me when I tell you, in no way was I grateful for getting shit canned, immediately following my Grandfathers death.

To be continued…

Part 1

Part 3

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