Once upon a time, I woke up to sunshine in my eyes and an automatic sense to euphoria. I had just turned my life around, from zero to hero in a matter of 3 months, landing some pretty big accounts and benefiting from the seemingly endless rally on Wall Street, thanks to internet stocks.
I was way ahead of everyone else, early to invest, knowing full well the potential power of the internet and how it would affect commerce. I was positioned in all sorts of gems, from BCST to AMER to MSPG to ELNK to BYND to ONSL to GCTY to motherfucking ATHM.
I could not be stopped, only contained.
I was new to the business and had the energy of a fucking coked up monkey, running sideways throughout the streets of Manhattan. I took accounts from 250k to 1 million inside a few months. Times were great and everyone knew it.
Lunch consisted of oversized 2 1/2 inch cowboy cut ribeyes, cooked medium rare, heavily salted, lightly peppered. I had my own office; so naturally we got drunk. After work, we’d just throw money around, buying drinks for everyone, feasting like Kings.
Life was easy back then, at least until the market crashed. Back at the firm, brokers would just hang around, bragging about their market exploits, each story more ridiculous than the prior. Even sales assistants were making 6 figures, due to the impressive production runs coming from the brokers.
Let’s not forget all the times we’d send the lowly coldcallers out on Starbuck runs.
Gleefully, clients would come to the firm, impressed with everything they saw, almost honored to be in the presence of such Godly managers of money, who made them rich.
The market was so bullish and so easy to trade, nearly everyone I knew was invested, even my barber. People would just hang around the television and wait for Joe Kernen (CNBC) to highlight some “hot stocks,” then bid them up into the close. Everyone knew the gains were unsustainable. However, there were so many overzealous internet analysts (Blodget), who helped keep the parade going, people thought the market would go up forever, spearheaded by “the new economy.”
That fucker(Blodget) made me so much money with his AMZN call, I would kiss him, in a very non-gay way, if I ever met him.
I was into buying watches and diamond studded cuff links. Naturally, all of my work attire was tailor made, and my shoes were egregious, always shined.
Those were the days, 10 years to the day, when America was proud of itself and innovation made the market run.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGa52pQ-z4E 450 300]NOTE: Here is a news article, penned a decade ago, highlighting how much we (Americans) kicked ass.
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The Fly is God.
A single tear just rolled down my cheek.
Partying like its 1999…days gone forever
Nice story. Fly, you are a great writer.
I guess we must be having fun.
It’s kind of like waking up and finding out Superman is a child molester.
so what now?
Nice piece.
The Fly and Blodget scenario would go something like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq53pDtuMiY
Great Heads tune.
It’s amazing even I was able to take $5000 and turn it into $108,000 in one year without knowing jack shit about stocks. And that was playing it small with tiny bullshit piker lots of 50 and 100 shares per trade. I was playing at the kiddie table. That’s all you needed when YHOO went up 35 points a day on its way to 400. Unreal. Then 2000 came along and fagged us all. I remember losing $14K on AOL in one day. I then found out what a fucking stop order was.
I’ve been sitting back the past couple of weeks just absorbing as much information, reading reports, sitting on the train listening to conversations of folks scared shitless and some with way to little brain cells to comprehend the true ability for this economy and government to buckle. Nevertheless, this country has become its own virus eating itself from the inside out.
Would I be correct in saying if c, ge, gm, bac and aig hit 0 the dow will go down no more than another 220 points ?
Thoughts ?
Did your firm have the golden T machine, for the coke, and the pool table, for the girls? Also, at one of the shit hole firms I was at, they would ring this fucking bell so loud after every fill. Great times.
You’re all f/:ktards for taking the time to post such heartfelt comments. Go back to sipping your box of white wine and think about how much you want to be someone else. F/:k you
nick
Go f/:k a knothole.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t sustainable now matter what evereryone thought.
Now we sing a different tune: Life During Wartime
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzORu1dqEE0
Malaka,
If just GE went to zero the shockwave would reverberate around the world.
i too was sad when the .com party ended. even though i had never participated in it. it was still fun to watch and read about.
I missed that whole party. I watched from the sidelines in disbelief through the real estate bubble too. I prefer to make money off the people who think they are rich from this bubble bullshit.
The way I play it makes It a lot easier coming down.
It is funny how the same people who tell you that your crazy for missing the boat admire you after they’ve lost it all.
you might want to consider using your time machine to steal an anti-aging potion from the future. does not history revolve around building things up just to break them down?
Rep Defazio is an asshat.
‘Daytraders provide no economic value to society.’
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?play=1&video=1051076486
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLAJOe14F8k
FLY: Exactly. You are capable of putting together the best trading book in history.
Hell, you could even include some of the threads from your blogs.
Great stuff.
Reminiscences of Horatio Clawhammer.
#1 Best Seller.
It must have The Wizard on the front cover though.
Reminiscences of Horatio Clawhammer.
“One of the most highly regarded financial books ever written.”
-Jack D Schwagger
Would Borders merchandise a book called “Fuck you, you’re dead”?
Atlas Vicious Says:
Would Borders merchandise a book called “Fuck you, you’re dead”?
No, but it would be an underground best seller.
a decade ago….ahhh the rollercoaster ride on stocks like HIFN. Meanwhile I was losing $ in stupid biotech and mining crap..
FLY: How about telling us about an extreme trade. On the way up, how many positions did you usually keep? I mean, did you ever go “all in”,on leverage, with one pick?
And on your “big accounts” that you landed early on. Can you elaborate on that? What was big back then? What did you do for them?
Put me down for some EXDS(Exodus Comm.)!!!!
I grew up watching CNBC’s segment called “The Internet Investor”…was hosted by some MIT geek named Steve Frank. GOOD TIMES!
Its good to see our suggestions taken seriously…. we’ve politely requested our more concerned citizens not to dicuss ongoing events here or we will be forced to employ additional measures
I own a nice house and have 100% no debt and am freaking over my investments now because of working in R&D at 2 different Business Intelligence companies that were sold off in 2000 and 2003. Real Good Times, 3 years of work at 30 set me up.
My God, I don’t think Abe Lincoln could have said it better.
Memories, light the corners of my mind. Misty watercolored memories, of the way we were.
Gone are the days…
when you could buy an internet stock and expect to make 100% by the end of the week.
when you bought every breakout, and made money.
when you were considered poor if you didn’t have illegals washing and waxing your SUV and BMW in the driveway of your McMansion.
ALERT: Fuck all other pundits. Bob Parker will be on CNBC Europe tonight. Be sure to check in.
I hope Bob Parker tells the U.S. Govt. to STFU and give up on getting the names of Swiss bank account holders.
For those of us who attended Internet World 1999 and again in 2000 (@ Jacob Javitz)…it was obvious to most we entered a Bear market in the Spring/Summer of 2000…that we are STILL in.
In terms of CNBS Europe my favorite guest host is Hugh Hendry — who called it correctly — early and often:
http://acheson.wordpress.com/2008/04/11/have-to-love-hugh-hendry/
Nice shoes?
Excellent post. That was the time when me and mine first got ours, too.
Talking Heads were not on speaking terms by then, but the music is still appropriate.
_____________________
Hugh Hendry rocks. He’s no Fly, but he rocks.
Hugh Hendry rocks, btw. He’s no Fly, but very good.
People are ignant and uneducated for the most part and the highs and lows of America’s development is based on this risk. go ahead and try and measure this protestant work ethic orkeep on keeping on.
Overheard on the street –
“I haven’t seen the market this oversold since tomorrow”!!
Fly,
Your gifted prose would make Shakespeare swoon with envy. Great read, thanks.
Write a book already fuckface.
MGMT does a pretty good version of this song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTiFNQBRwwU
I wonder, does the NYSE still have confetti up in the rafters for good days?
The good old days seem to be long gone. America will have many years to recapitalize the banking system which will have to come from savings and production. The borrow and spend days are over
There’s a potential for some buying into the bad news today and possible forcing of shorts to cover their positions. We’ll see.
OK ish jobless number as people were worried about it being much higher. There were rumors of 1 million in london this morn.
Lets watch and see what happens with GE WFC.
Don’t worry, our boy will save us. Hailed as a great orator and the savior of the american people… uhuh.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090305/pl_politico/19663
You hear about the new Obama tax initiative? He ‘s goign to tax aspirin 5%.
Anything white that works…. badump….
GE up slightly in pre-market. WFC and GS seeing a pop in pre-market as well.
Oh, and Vincenzo needs to look in the mirror and say, “I’m smart enough, I’m good enough, and darn it people like me”.
could someone send a coked up Mike Tyson to PUNCH Michelle Cabrera in the fucking throat live on set….fucking annoying beaner wash woman skank…she should be washing vegetables in a field in south america
yahoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Did The Fly’s anticipated career change fall through? That would be unfortunate… Bummer, man; there’s more fish in the sea; she probably would have slept with your friends anyway. Or embarassed you in front of them with gratuitous inopportune public spillage. Maybe a more interesting question is how many years in a row started out so freakishly well that you had to lose for a while to feel right about it…
real estate scoop with no poop…good blog, gives ideas on what the governent is doing and how it will affect everyone.
http://rechatter.blogspot.com/
real estate scoop…the truth about the tarps and farts
http://rechatter.blogspot.com/
With the market in the grrn this AM, time to fade the rally and plow the proceeds into Spam, gold and guns…..
The market looks okayish today.
I bought a little to test the water.
Now the FDIC gets a bailout.
http://rechatter.blogspot.com/
Long 2500 RJF @ 12
Holy shit what caused that gap up?
It’s a bull market. moe. It always gaps like that when it’s a huge bullmarket like this one 🙂
IT’s gotta hold pretty much around here if it trades below 100 gain in the Dow it’s heading down again.
I doubt we hold these gains. If we do I would be very surprised. I expect we close down 200 today.
Fly can we check these etfs on the PPT.
DBC,GSP,UBC,JJA
Thanks
Talking Heads = kings of melancholy rhythms
All the retirement folks who seek a check from dividends are selling stock. And don’t forget those dividend-theme funds enjoying massive redemption. Money like this never returns.
I hear the sound of the market going down the drain… like the smell of napalm.
China sees signs of economy recovering
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5252CC20090306
And they always tell the truth.
SRS trying to crack 100 again… comm RE is dead
Breaking news: Maria Bartiromo is currently on her knees blowing a CEO begging for an interview.
Elsewhere in the news: CNBC is on the sale block, no offers yet from any US company, only one bidder on the table, Al Jazeera.
more developing, Senior Tropicana is currently on this story and might post more on this later?
remington-
I agree. The old farts counting on dividends are moving to CD’s and bonds. The dividends that have been cut will not be coming back anytime soon. Expect more liquidation as soon as the retail investors get their quarterly statements. They will panic and want out to save the little money they have left.
The big jump earlier was short covering, and any rally today will be due to shorts taking profits. There are no buyers!
Do not believe any of the spin that CNBC tries to put on this market. There is no recovery any time soon
Breaking news:
Al Jazeera has pulled their bid for now stating “CNBC is a worthless financial show with worthless Hosts and is run by morons who have no idea how irritating and ignorant their reporters are and we would be forced to fired the entire staff.”
Kiyosaki called for a run for cover stock meltdown by the retirees in a book a few yrs ago, but he expected in another 5 yrs.
SRS running again. KIM going to 4 and VNO to 15
the best was toting around the hat trick of the
motorola star-tac
gen 1 blackberry
palm pilot
ooooph!
wow on SRS
Kiyosaki is a loon. He is one of the people to blame for the bubble in housing, telling people that housing never goes down. Fuck his rich Dad. My dad is rich and he made it the old fashion way. Oil! ha ha ha
That’s true Moe. The little guys are getting out and sticking their money in CD’s….
They’ll leave it there for 3 months and then start realizing that 1% on 50G is 500 bucks. What do they do then?
Even though I hate this guy, it is a good article the point I mean.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/29510052
My bid was not accepted on Michael Vick’s house. 🙁
Anon-
They are watching too much TV and those HSBC commercials, alnog with local banks advertisements they will be sukered into 3 to 5 yr CD’s paying 3%, becasue they believe its a safe place. Little guys have no grasp of the inflation we will see. The only thing they are thinking about right now is safety. Hence the bubble in treasuries
Nice. I jumped out of SRS at 107.9 after being in it overnight. I’ll take it. this market closes up today. down more into Monday and then the rocket ride up next week when the rumor that mark-to-market is gonna get clubbed on the head and put in the trunk.
The market needs to gap up 400 points to absorb 300 points of selling to close 100 points up.
Sorry for all of you who followed fly on the TNA trade. I told you to jump on TWM instead.
With the credit markets still frozen, small caps are in trouble. Got in last month on TWM at 84 and its been a sweet ride since.
This market trades sideways for most of the day. I don’t know how we will close, but I don’t think their are many buyers out there. But then again there may not be a lot of people who want to be short into the weekend.
GS falling off a cliff. I have been short since 95 and holding on until 60
Felt naked without XOM short, so I went and bot shitload of DTO
Closed MET trade at loss
one of those new police recruits should get up and egg our moron president now…egg Obama if you see him.
Barry O is incompetent, plain and simple.
Remember when Bush was on TV the market tanked and when the big O got on, it rallied? Now, this sucker comes off when he’s on, even when he isn’t talking about the economy.
Obama is about to say CEOs max pay will be $250k while teacher make $150k minimum. Watch.
I have a feeling Hugo Chavez and The Big O are not too different.
yeh bullshit……2 billion in grants for law inforcement across the nation to help with overload and overtime my ass, 2 billion to pay for added police and equipment to inforce martial law when it goes into effect later on when the citizens go ape shit and start rioting…….
Man he is such a savvy speaker, with those telepromters and all, he can change the world.
Short COCO at 16.66 and PBCT at 16.82
I’m so tired of hearing this man you assholes elected President constantly talking about the mess he “inherited”.
He wanted the fucking job. Try being a leader. Stop whining like a fucking baby.
What a fucking disaster.
He is not from here! Give him a break.
President Obama lived in the Indonesian capital Jakarta from 1967 to 1971 after his mother divorced his Kenyan father and married an Indonesian man.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.e51d3128469e20a697ca763ff37e9031.21&show_article=1
shitface,
“Obama is about to say CEOs max pay will be $250k while teacher make $150k minimum. Watch”
At least teacher provide REAL future value while CEO’s of today stand for corruption, crime, incompetence, rape of the country….
Sure. We will become like Cuba.
You socialists are all idiots.
you are too slow to see that we have exceeded cuba in destroying our country by the greedy criminals. this is not socialism, fascism…talk. Just common sense. Look around yuo!
In capitalizm, we reward the competent. I say teachers are more competent in what they do than these COCSUCKER ceo’s.
Why is it that the whole country is up in arms if we give a raise to the teachers who we entrust the furure of our children with, but when we give TRILLIONS to the criminals because they are called CEO’s…all is fine.
Let’s get back to capitalizm and reward the COMPETENT ONLY!
joe,
This system is not capitalism its corporatism. The Teachers Union is its own beast to deal with. That union has no interest, one way or another, on how educated our kids become. Its only interest is to sustain itself.. The same as buisness.
Where this American enterprise has failed, is all of our politicians having been dutifully contained into one place. So tempting a system to co-opt and corrupt by institutions with money who will always strive to perpetuate themselves. Handing power to the federal Government to ‘regulate’ has just set up a one stop shop for the money.
might open eyes to one of the bigger mis-steps…
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/