Does trading have to be exciting?
While the market remains at all-time highs, I remain skeptical and a lot of that is because I allowed myself to become complacent in 2007, after having missed the rally of 1999 because that, too, was ridiculous. In retrospect I was right – but not until March of 2000 and I could have had some fun betting on anything with a pulse in 1999 so, when 2007 came along – I finally went with the flow and, while we had pretty good timing in 2008 getting out on top – a lot of people didn't. So I guess, this time around, I just want to make sure nobody gets burned when this thing collapses.
We are all shaped by our past and we all run our own gauntlets to become the people we are today. I know I trade like an old man because I learned from my Grandfather, Max Davis, who was born in 1903 and, in 1973, 10 year-old me laid on the floor on Sundays with the stock section of the paper laid out on the floor (you only got stock reports on Sundays back then), circling companies that made new highs or new lows so we could later investigate why it was happening and then Grandpa would do his Fundamental Analysis of the companies (often including actually visiting the company) to decide if there were any hidden values there.
Having lived (in England) through World War 1, the Pandemic that followed, the Great Depression and World War II, Grandpa Max had seen a lot of shit – and he was very good at conveying his experiences to me from both a Social and Economic perspective. Though he never went to college, Grandpa Max was a voracious reader and a very sharp businessman. Learning from him always gave me a long-term and patient perspective on stocks and, since we only got stock news on Sundays anyway – you learn to be patient by default.
So of course, growing up, I gravitated to books by Jeremy Grantham (also British) and Warren Buffett and that's my "style" – value investing but my twist on it (as I'm 30 years younger) is to use options for hedging and leverage – rather than just trying to…
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