16 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.
Full article here
I just hope this carries the stock through next week, barring more “EU Idiocy.”
GILD‘s chart and FinViz TA here
16 Responses to “The Championship Fight”
Kunal
As a 22 year old who skipped coming up to SF to drink with his “peers” and stay in to work on my project (launching next week), this post gives me the energy to stay up another couple hours and do more research.
The Once and Future Rhino
Kunal, that is what I am talking about! Get it done man!
Freebie
Wait – didn’t your last screen shot of your trading book show an 800k+ balance? Enough for a down payment no ?
drbigboss
capital one is in control of and capital one can spend are two different things.
Rhino
The Dr is right, I need as much trading capital as possible.
Montrose
Born to trade? With apologies to Emmylou.
http://youtu.be/PPq4LGzBVV0
Rhino
Nice, thanks dude.
Grmm
A couple of days ago you mentioned that you would describe what it was like to wait for the invasion of Iraq, 10 years ago.
I am really interested in hearing your side!
Rhino
I will be writing it today.
Tonka
I’m trying to integrate all of my daily reading into feedly so I don’t have to go to individual websites. Twitter can be a difficult place to keep up with everyone’s articles when news is flowing.
So, I search ibankcoin and the usual suspects come up. Except you aren’t there. Analystbomber is there along with King of the Peanut Gallery. Old school stuff that hasn’t existed in years. Looks to be in serious need of an update.
I know ibankcoin has never really cared about promoting via rss very much. I don’t know whether you’d even get views if someone reads your articles on feedly, but just thought you’d want to know.
Rhino
I’ll talk to Jeremy about it, thanks.
MCPJ
Thought you might be interested in this:
http://reason.com/blog/2013/03/22/treating-ptsd-with-medical-marijuana
Rhino
Thanks bruh, you on break?
MCPJ
Back at it this week… plans this summer?
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