I just don’t get it. I see the gym as my temple, but some sorry fuckers always want to come ask me some stupid questions. Asking a question is one thing, asking a question just to tell me what I’m doing “wrong,” is a whole ‘nother story. I’d like to beat all of your faces in. The guy who asked me “why I grabbed the 70 lb DBs because I could only get 3 reps?,” [the beginning of a superset]. The guy that said it didn’t count because it was a “Smith Machine,” when I got 3 reps on the crappy Smith Machine– it sticks at points on the way up –with 540 lbs in just plate weight, going all the way down to the stops, stopping, taking a breath, then coming back up. Or, the dude that said “why do you arch your back when you bench press? Isn’t that dangerous, and shouldn’t you have your elbows out, I even like to have my feet up?”
Mr Fletcher, CT, I want to thank you and Arash for everything you do. San Francisco has no hardcore gyms anymore. I don’t have any training partners, but this week I benched 410 lbs in just “plate weight,” for 5 reps with no spot on the Smith, pulled 675 lbs off of the second pin in the cage, with just a belt and chalk, and squatted 540 lbs in just “plate weight all the way down to the “stop, (see above). If you just took the best rep of all three, they would add up to 1605 lbs. I want so bad to be a “sick motha fucka.” No matter what, I go all out, all the time.
Have you ever even lifted that in your life? @chessNwine @RaginCajun @a_bh_a @UncleBuccs @The_Analyst and the GURU @marc_david can vouch for my lifts. I didn’t have a spotter on ANY of them, but that didn’t stop me. I’m not scared of shit, everyday I wake up and watch CT say this. I go to the gym actively looking to kick pain’s ass, just like I kick adversity’s ass the rest of the time. Whether it’s the one company I am running, the two I am working on starting, my blogging, my quest to bench 500 lbs, or training to try out for the San Jose Sabercats.
Every night, before bed, I watch this, great words by CT. I will be bench pressing 500 lbs within the next month. Bet on that, SNAP CITY PUSSIES.
A 101st soldier and an 82nd soldier are room mates.
One night during a drunken night. Their only lighter slips, and falls from the second story balcony.
The 82nd soldier immediately jumps and spends a few seconds to recover himself off the ground.
The 101st soldier finds himself some rope and gently ropes down.
Who gets the lighter first?Who cares only one of them didn’t look like a pussy.
Not really. I won iBC’s Annual March Madness Stock Contest, (see RC’s post here), with a combination of a lot of luck, and a lot of hard work. I tried to pick a stock I knew well, GILD, that had momentum at the beginning of the contest, and hopefully would continue with strength. Picking a biotech stock is always a gamble, as the FDA can be a fickle beast.
I placed my bet on their “human capital.” My buddy, who works for them, works so god damned hard, and his team works just as hard, if not harder. I try to distance myself from talking to him about specific information regarding their development, that’s wrong, and it’s illegal. Plenty of professors, and professionals, have told me that it’s just too hard or impossible to beat the market.
I believe they are wrong, and I’ve mentioned before that when I was initially looking at ZNGA as a short, one of my biggest tells was that the majority of their employees I spoke to, hated their jobs, and more importantly, didn’t believe in them. You can’t win battles if your soldiers don’t want to fight.
My boy who works for GILD, truly believes in what he does, and he holds his team to the same standard. These folks are fighting with the same vigor and determination to rid the world of AIDS, HEP-C, etc; that I fought with to end the world of terrorists.
Whether you believe that Christ died for all of our sins, then was resurrected from the dead, that Moses lead the chosen out of Egypt, and/or that a large fluffy bunny lays chocolate eggs with cream filling , use the time this weekend to enjoy your friends and family. Please keep all the folks in Afghanistan and other places far form their families in your thoughts, and their kids who don’t get to hunt eggs with them. Even if you don’t believe in any of the above, I just ask that you use the holiday time to realize we’ve really got it pretty good.
10 yrs ago I was sitting on an MRE box in PT shorts and a brown t-shirt, taking mass from the battalion chaplain. The first, and only, time I would go to mass while I was in the Army. This weekend I will be working the entire time– save for Easter Dinner with the lady’s family –and I may, in fact, Skype my parents on the East Coast with my Nexus 10.
If one was to look at US futures currently, they would seem to be down, just barely. These are indices futures, look at the VIX futures, up 1.41%. That has been my “tell” lately, when volatility futures are ripping, but index futures are down– at all –this means we trade down in the morning. Conversely, when index futures are up, at all, but volatility futures are down, we trade up in the morning.
What say you about how we trade tomorrow? (Say “Bull” or “Bear” in the comments section)
I would like you to please thank your ancestors for me, for giving the stupid Pharaoh the finger, and leaving that god forsaken hell hole known as Egypt. Nothing good ever came out of Egypt [EDIT: Except you guys], just look at that place now. Here’s to you guys, raise some Manischewitz for me.
If you were unaware, 2013 is, in fact, “The Year of The Rhino.” Odin continues to favor me, while Thor and his Mjölnir show me the way. I came up with an idea last night that is going to change how finance and social media interact forever. As I have mentioned before, the quickest way to raise cash these days is to develop something tech related then sell it to a large tech firm. Just like this 17-year-old boss, GETTING PAID. Yahoo tossed this kid $30 million to help them develop mobile, for 18 months? Marissa, I’ll do it for a third, and you already have a bus-stop a block a way from me.
My idea is so easy, and such a “no brainier,” that I laughed maniacally , then wanted to put my head through some drywall for not thinking of it earlier. I wouldn’t tell you if you had a gun to my head, I would just laugh, then tell you to go kick rocks in a tutu. The Valkyries are never far away from me. I really wanted the tech side of my business to be from of pompous little, Ivy League educated, trust funds they refer to as Roth IRAs having, finance types. I think I will be able to dodge that side of the business.
In fact, it will make all of them look like gutless cowards, unless they want to step up to the plate. The same goes to so called “market gurus,” “welcome to the real world, PALLY-O, want a real challenge?” I can’t wait to call my coder, he’s going to call me a bonehead, and that’s okay, because he’s far smarter than I, and out in NYC, more than likely drinking Manischewitz at the current time.
Things our getting down to the wire in the annual iBC March Madness Contest– bracket here –and today I started to pull away from “Pashavee.” If I win I will have to take my buddy who works for GILD out to lunch or something, for all of the company’s hard work, not just hard work, but curing the world of horrible diseases.
I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff in my life, and have also been through my fair share of adversity. I believe Odin has finally shown me the way. Here’s to excellence, heart, and winship.
After getting up and observing the flatness, I went back to bed to take a nap, as I feel like I’ve been tossed down a mountainside. The market is being finicky here, with small dark pools of volume. This is what I am looking to trade. I am up very nicely so far in 2013, but I don’t want to press my luck, thus I am looking for quick swings for a few percent, here and there.
After running some screens and looking at some seasonality, I found some names to watch, and also made some moves.
Here I am, it’s 11:15 on a Friday night, and I am up doing research and blogging about it. I am exhausted, my body is tortured, and my eyes feel heavy. Yet, here I am, plugging away. That’s how you win, don’t you see? You don’t win by sitting at a bar taking shots with your “peers.” You win by being better than them. Why do you think college finance professors always say you can’t beat the market? They don’t want to put the work in. Neither do the idiots from the firms downtown that headed straight to Monaghanas, 21st Amendment, etc, after the market closed today.
They’re so big, all that really matters is their management fee. They’ll plod along with their models, making investments, attempting to manage risk. It’s pretty easy to win right now, so they are probably slightly above the indices, but they are surely not over 10%. And, when they take a big loss, oh well!” It’s all part of the risk of playing the game,” or at least that is what they tell their clients, then they go and cash their bonus checks.
I have no interest in this kind of skulduggery. I intend, instead, to work my ass off. I recently talked to a relative that thought if I just went and got a job with a “big bank,” making a $120k base, that I would be able to buy a house in 6 months. How do you come up with the $400k down payment if you only make a 4th of… That’s stupid, and they also said that being self-employed was “selfish” to the rest of the family because I don’t have a steady paycheck. I doubt they’ll feel that way when they’re begging me for more money in my Imperial Court.
There’s only one way to make it out here, and that is to be the best. It’s truly manifest destiny here, I can’t tell you how many Harvard, Stanford, etc, alumni I see all the time in my ‘hood. They have other– read rich –alumni ready to throw investment capital their way, just because they share the same alma mater. I will never have that, and my Dad doesn’t play golf, so he doesn’t have any golf buddies with capital to throw my way. Instead, I have to earn it the old fashioned way, by working my ass off.
I want to buy a house– SOON –as the lady definitely deserves one. I need to come up with at least $400,000 as a down payment for a single family home, or even a 2 bedroom flat really. I plan to do this by launching a tech company with a few ideas I have, and with the help of @mr_cardan’s super human coder/programmer brother, then selling the company to Akamai, Apptus, etc. Don’t call me a “Vulture Capitalist,” or any other bad name. I AM TRYING TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR MY FAMILY.
Survival of the fittest.
Please let me know if I am– in fact –beating a “dead horse.”
So, all this hard work, and frankly self punishment, gets me to my point; I made it to the final round of iBC’s March Madness Stock Contest. You can read @RaginCajun’s post about it here. This, especially, is a case where the “10% Luck” part of the equation comes into play. See this post. I worked my ass off to pick this company, I even had the conviction (balls?) to “direct message (on Twitter),” Lord Fly, Father and Ruler of iBC, The Current, and Always, Divine Ruler of the Orbital Space Cannon, that GILD was a “long term long, not just for a trade.” This was WELL before I was an “Interim Tabbed Blogger.”
I had no stress going into this contest, thinking that my luck would provide some catastrophic event in the first round, to the tune of “Gilead’s HIV drug is completely ineffective,” or something worse. Now, here I sit, after all the work, especially talking to current and former employees. No insider information, dick. I asked questions like “do you believe in what you are doing?” Or, “Would you say that everyday that you wake up to go to work, you are motivated to see your work through, to the best of your ability?”
The responses were resoundingly positive, this may be directly correlated to the fact that most of the folks owned equity in the company. The equity was offered at the time of their hire, with restrictions, aka, perfect incentive to work your ass off. Do you understand my “fundamental research” now? Back when ZNGA was trading north of $13, I talked to people who worked for them, I didn’t ask them one question about future products or services, but the results were resounding that they hated the company and their jobs. The stock hasn’t traded above $10 in almost a year.
I’ve got one more week, and some great news on GILD came out today/yesterday/Friday. I really want to win, as I think a win may propel me over the 3% viewership requirement to become a “tabbed blogger.” I believe I have found a bit of a calling. I hate recognition, I can’t say for certain that I was always this way. I think it really started after I came back from my first tour in Iraq, there were hardly any kids from where I grew up– just north of SF –that joined the military, and only a very tiny fraction joined elite infantry/combat-arms units.
I was paraded around as a “hero,” with family, friends, news agencies, and politicians all using me as a “special guest,” at their galas. I was so naive then, so naive in fact that I blew almost $100k on the motor and restoration of my 1970 Dodge Challenger RT/SE. That, I later had to sell to a guy in Australia for $30k in 2008, because I was out of money. The all aluminum “Mopar big-block” engine was over $10k itself, after a HUGE “military” discount. There’s my down payment there.
You live and you learn, but what really has been making me happy these days, is when I make a great call– a la, long NFLX, short STP –that you guys are making money off of it. That is awesome! It’s almost like my clients making money. I think Odin has blessed me with this calling to make the little guy rich, without having to join some stupid “Skull and Bones” type organization. Let’s keep it up, and check out GILD‘s news:
A committee advising the European Union’s medical regulator issued a passel of drug recommendations early Friday, some affecting leading U.S. biotech stocks.
The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) voted to approve Biogen Idec’s (BIIB) multiple-sclerosis drug Tecfidera, also known as BG-12…
…Gilead Sciences’ (GILD) HIV drug Stribild, formerly known as “the quad” because it combines four different medicines in one pill, also received a yes vote. Stribild won U.S. approval last summer, and analysts expect it to be a solid contributor to the biotech’s dominance in the HIV field. Gilead’s stock was up more than 1% in morning trading.
I just don’t get it. I see the gym as my temple, but some sorry fuckers always want to come ask me some stupid questions. Asking a question is one thing, asking a question just to tell me what I’m doing “wrong,” is a whole ‘nother story. I’d like to beat all of your faces in. The guy who asked me “why I grabbed the 70 lb DBs because I could only get 3 reps?,” [the beginning of a superset]. The guy that said it didn’t count because it was a “Smith Machine,” when I got 3 reps on the crappy Smith Machine– it sticks at points on the way up –with 540 lbs in just plate weight, going all the way down to the stops, stopping, taking a breath, then coming back up. Or, the dude that said “why do you arch your back when you bench press? Isn’t that dangerous, and shouldn’t you have your elbows out, I even like to have my feet up?”
Mr Fletcher, CT, I want to thank you and Arash for everything you do. San Francisco has no hardcore gyms anymore. I don’t have any training partners, but this week I benched 410 lbs in just “plate weight,” for 5 reps with no spot on the Smith, pulled 675 lbs off of the second pin in the cage, with just a belt and chalk, and squatted 540 lbs in just “plate weight all the way down to the “stop, (see above). If you just took the best rep of all three, they would add up to 1605 lbs. I want so bad to be a “sick motha fucka.” No matter what, I go all out, all the time.
Have you ever even lifted that in your life? @chessNwine @RaginCajun @a_bh_a @UncleBuccs @The_Analyst and the GURU @marc_david can vouch for my lifts. I didn’t have a spotter on ANY of them, but that didn’t stop me. I’m not scared of shit, everyday I wake up and watch CT say this. I go to the gym actively looking to kick pain’s ass, just like I kick adversity’s ass the rest of the time. Whether it’s the one company I am running, the two I am working on starting, my blogging, my quest to bench 500 lbs, or training to try out for the San Jose Sabercats.
Every night, before bed, I watch this, great words by CT. I will be bench pressing 500 lbs within the next month. Bet on that, SNAP CITY PUSSIES.
A 101st soldier and an 82nd soldier are room mates.
One night during a drunken night. Their only lighter slips, and falls from the second story balcony.
The 82nd soldier immediately jumps and spends a few seconds to recover himself off the ground.
The 101st soldier finds himself some rope and gently ropes down.
Who gets the lighter first?Who cares only one of them didn’t look like a pussy.
Not really. I won iBC’s Annual March Madness Stock Contest, (see RC’s post here), with a combination of a lot of luck, and a lot of hard work. I tried to pick a stock I knew well, GILD, that had momentum at the beginning of the contest, and hopefully would continue with strength. Picking a biotech stock is always a gamble, as the FDA can be a fickle beast.
I placed my bet on their “human capital.” My buddy, who works for them, works so god damned hard, and his team works just as hard, if not harder. I try to distance myself from talking to him about specific information regarding their development, that’s wrong, and it’s illegal. Plenty of professors, and professionals, have told me that it’s just too hard or impossible to beat the market.
I believe they are wrong, and I’ve mentioned before that when I was initially looking at ZNGA as a short, one of my biggest tells was that the majority of their employees I spoke to, hated their jobs, and more importantly, didn’t believe in them. You can’t win battles if your soldiers don’t want to fight.
My boy who works for GILD, truly believes in what he does, and he holds his team to the same standard. These folks are fighting with the same vigor and determination to rid the world of AIDS, HEP-C, etc; that I fought with to end the world of terrorists.
Whether you believe that Christ died for all of our sins, then was resurrected from the dead, that Moses lead the chosen out of Egypt, and/or that a large fluffy bunny lays chocolate eggs with cream filling , use the time this weekend to enjoy your friends and family. Please keep all the folks in Afghanistan and other places far form their families in your thoughts, and their kids who don’t get to hunt eggs with them. Even if you don’t believe in any of the above, I just ask that you use the holiday time to realize we’ve really got it pretty good.
10 yrs ago I was sitting on an MRE box in PT shorts and a brown t-shirt, taking mass from the battalion chaplain. The first, and only, time I would go to mass while I was in the Army. This weekend I will be working the entire time– save for Easter Dinner with the lady’s family –and I may, in fact, Skype my parents on the East Coast with my Nexus 10.
If one was to look at US futures currently, they would seem to be down, just barely. These are indices futures, look at the VIX futures, up 1.41%. That has been my “tell” lately, when volatility futures are ripping, but index futures are down– at all –this means we trade down in the morning. Conversely, when index futures are up, at all, but volatility futures are down, we trade up in the morning.
What say you about how we trade tomorrow? (Say “Bull” or “Bear” in the comments section)
I would like you to please thank your ancestors for me, for giving the stupid Pharaoh the finger, and leaving that god forsaken hell hole known as Egypt. Nothing good ever came out of Egypt [EDIT: Except you guys], just look at that place now. Here’s to you guys, raise some Manischewitz for me.
If you were unaware, 2013 is, in fact, “The Year of The Rhino.” Odin continues to favor me, while Thor and his Mjölnir show me the way. I came up with an idea last night that is going to change how finance and social media interact forever. As I have mentioned before, the quickest way to raise cash these days is to develop something tech related then sell it to a large tech firm. Just like this 17-year-old boss, GETTING PAID. Yahoo tossed this kid $30 million to help them develop mobile, for 18 months? Marissa, I’ll do it for a third, and you already have a bus-stop a block a way from me.
My idea is so easy, and such a “no brainier,” that I laughed maniacally , then wanted to put my head through some drywall for not thinking of it earlier. I wouldn’t tell you if you had a gun to my head, I would just laugh, then tell you to go kick rocks in a tutu. The Valkyries are never far away from me. I really wanted the tech side of my business to be from of pompous little, Ivy League educated, trust funds they refer to as Roth IRAs having, finance types. I think I will be able to dodge that side of the business.
In fact, it will make all of them look like gutless cowards, unless they want to step up to the plate. The same goes to so called “market gurus,” “welcome to the real world, PALLY-O, want a real challenge?” I can’t wait to call my coder, he’s going to call me a bonehead, and that’s okay, because he’s far smarter than I, and out in NYC, more than likely drinking Manischewitz at the current time.
Things our getting down to the wire in the annual iBC March Madness Contest– bracket here –and today I started to pull away from “Pashavee.” If I win I will have to take my buddy who works for GILD out to lunch or something, for all of the company’s hard work, not just hard work, but curing the world of horrible diseases.
I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff in my life, and have also been through my fair share of adversity. I believe Odin has finally shown me the way. Here’s to excellence, heart, and winship.
After getting up and observing the flatness, I went back to bed to take a nap, as I feel like I’ve been tossed down a mountainside. The market is being finicky here, with small dark pools of volume. This is what I am looking to trade. I am up very nicely so far in 2013, but I don’t want to press my luck, thus I am looking for quick swings for a few percent, here and there.
After running some screens and looking at some seasonality, I found some names to watch, and also made some moves.
Here I am, it’s 11:15 on a Friday night, and I am up doing research and blogging about it. I am exhausted, my body is tortured, and my eyes feel heavy. Yet, here I am, plugging away. That’s how you win, don’t you see? You don’t win by sitting at a bar taking shots with your “peers.” You win by being better than them. Why do you think college finance professors always say you can’t beat the market? They don’t want to put the work in. Neither do the idiots from the firms downtown that headed straight to Monaghanas, 21st Amendment, etc, after the market closed today.
They’re so big, all that really matters is their management fee. They’ll plod along with their models, making investments, attempting to manage risk. It’s pretty easy to win right now, so they are probably slightly above the indices, but they are surely not over 10%. And, when they take a big loss, oh well!” It’s all part of the risk of playing the game,” or at least that is what they tell their clients, then they go and cash their bonus checks.
I have no interest in this kind of skulduggery. I intend, instead, to work my ass off. I recently talked to a relative that thought if I just went and got a job with a “big bank,” making a $120k base, that I would be able to buy a house in 6 months. How do you come up with the $400k down payment if you only make a 4th of… That’s stupid, and they also said that being self-employed was “selfish” to the rest of the family because I don’t have a steady paycheck. I doubt they’ll feel that way when they’re begging me for more money in my Imperial Court.
There’s only one way to make it out here, and that is to be the best. It’s truly manifest destiny here, I can’t tell you how many Harvard, Stanford, etc, alumni I see all the time in my ‘hood. They have other– read rich –alumni ready to throw investment capital their way, just because they share the same alma mater. I will never have that, and my Dad doesn’t play golf, so he doesn’t have any golf buddies with capital to throw my way. Instead, I have to earn it the old fashioned way, by working my ass off.
I want to buy a house– SOON –as the lady definitely deserves one. I need to come up with at least $400,000 as a down payment for a single family home, or even a 2 bedroom flat really. I plan to do this by launching a tech company with a few ideas I have, and with the help of @mr_cardan’s super human coder/programmer brother, then selling the company to Akamai, Apptus, etc. Don’t call me a “Vulture Capitalist,” or any other bad name. I AM TRYING TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR MY FAMILY.
Survival of the fittest.
Please let me know if I am– in fact –beating a “dead horse.”
So, all this hard work, and frankly self punishment, gets me to my point; I made it to the final round of iBC’s March Madness Stock Contest. You can read @RaginCajun’s post about it here. This, especially, is a case where the “10% Luck” part of the equation comes into play. See this post. I worked my ass off to pick this company, I even had the conviction (balls?) to “direct message (on Twitter),” Lord Fly, Father and Ruler of iBC, The Current, and Always, Divine Ruler of the Orbital Space Cannon, that GILD was a “long term long, not just for a trade.” This was WELL before I was an “Interim Tabbed Blogger.”
I had no stress going into this contest, thinking that my luck would provide some catastrophic event in the first round, to the tune of “Gilead’s HIV drug is completely ineffective,” or something worse. Now, here I sit, after all the work, especially talking to current and former employees. No insider information, dick. I asked questions like “do you believe in what you are doing?” Or, “Would you say that everyday that you wake up to go to work, you are motivated to see your work through, to the best of your ability?”
The responses were resoundingly positive, this may be directly correlated to the fact that most of the folks owned equity in the company. The equity was offered at the time of their hire, with restrictions, aka, perfect incentive to work your ass off. Do you understand my “fundamental research” now? Back when ZNGA was trading north of $13, I talked to people who worked for them, I didn’t ask them one question about future products or services, but the results were resounding that they hated the company and their jobs. The stock hasn’t traded above $10 in almost a year.
I’ve got one more week, and some great news on GILD came out today/yesterday/Friday. I really want to win, as I think a win may propel me over the 3% viewership requirement to become a “tabbed blogger.” I believe I have found a bit of a calling. I hate recognition, I can’t say for certain that I was always this way. I think it really started after I came back from my first tour in Iraq, there were hardly any kids from where I grew up– just north of SF –that joined the military, and only a very tiny fraction joined elite infantry/combat-arms units.
I was paraded around as a “hero,” with family, friends, news agencies, and politicians all using me as a “special guest,” at their galas. I was so naive then, so naive in fact that I blew almost $100k on the motor and restoration of my 1970 Dodge Challenger RT/SE. That, I later had to sell to a guy in Australia for $30k in 2008, because I was out of money. The all aluminum “Mopar big-block” engine was over $10k itself, after a HUGE “military” discount. There’s my down payment there.
You live and you learn, but what really has been making me happy these days, is when I make a great call– a la, long NFLX, short STP –that you guys are making money off of it. That is awesome! It’s almost like my clients making money. I think Odin has blessed me with this calling to make the little guy rich, without having to join some stupid “Skull and Bones” type organization. Let’s keep it up, and check out GILD‘s news:
A committee advising the European Union’s medical regulator issued a passel of drug recommendations early Friday, some affecting leading U.S. biotech stocks.
The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) voted to approve Biogen Idec’s (BIIB) multiple-sclerosis drug Tecfidera, also known as BG-12…
…Gilead Sciences’ (GILD) HIV drug Stribild, formerly known as “the quad” because it combines four different medicines in one pill, also received a yes vote. Stribild won U.S. approval last summer, and analysts expect it to be a solid contributor to the biotech’s dominance in the HIV field. Gilead’s stock was up more than 1% in morning trading.
3 
