What eventually happened to Cities Service after the brokerage firm liquidated
That's the ironic thing. The deal fell through, f had been able to meet the margin call, within a month, I would have made back all my money and even had a profit. The takeover offer was made just before expiration and then retracted afterward. There should have been an investigation, but there never was. On the positive side, though, if I had been filled on the last hundred options 1 was trying to sell the day before the takeover announcement, I would have been forced into bankruptcy.
What about Sambos
When I went to the Rose Bowl with my fraternity brothers, we went out to eat at a Sambo's. I had never heard of the chain before and thought it was neat, so I bought the stock. That's a summary of my total research. I didn't know anything more about either of the two companies. Then the stockbroker I was dealing with said, Mark, you like action. Why don't you try stock options I don't know anything about options, I told him. He gave me a booklet to read. After reading it from cover the cover, I...
Thats pretty impressive How much money did you make
I learned an interesting lesson about odds winning 80 percent of the time may not be enough if the odds are not right. I forget the exact number, but the track takes about 40 percent or more off the table. Wow, that's incredible that even makes slot machines look good So even though we won 80 percent of the time, it still wasn't enough to make any money. What information were you using to predict the race outcome All the information that comes in the racing program finish times for the dogs in...
Fundamentals Are Not Bullish or Bearish in a Vacuum They Are Bullish or Bearish
A great company could be a terrible investment if its price rise has already more than discounted the bullish fundamentals. Conversely, a company that has been experiencing problems and is the subject of negative news could be a great investment if its price decline has more than discounted the bearish information. In his interview, Lauer provided a number of excellent examples of this principle, among them Microsoft, an outstanding company in many respects, but one he considered a very poor...
STEVE LESCARBEAU The Ultimate Trading System
Steve Lescarbeail's systems are the next best thing to a daily subscription to tomorrow's Wall Street Journal. Lescarbeau invests in mutual funds. His goal is to hold them while they are going up and to be in a money market fund while they are going down. He times these asset transfers with such precision that he more than triples the average annual returns of the funds he invests in while sidestepping the bulk of their periodic downturns. During the five years he has traded, Lescarbeau has...
What eventually happened to the stock
It went back up again. But when Sanchez started to look like it was ready to roll over, I rebuilt my short position. Ironically, when it subsequently broke, I made more money on my new short position than I had lost being short when the stock exploded several months earlier. How large is your organization There are just two of us. Zack works with me and is an integral part of Miramar. There is a lot of money out there, and interested investors call me almost every day. I tell them that I am...
MICHAEL LAUER The Wisdom of Value the Folly of Fad
Just to set the record Straight, Michael Lauer was reluctant to do this interview. Nothing personal, you understand. In fact, he admits being a fan of the earlier Market Wizard books. It's just that he doesn't think he qualifies as a market wizard at least not yet. Perhaps after I've done this for ten years, maybe then I'll qualify, he says. Well, Lauer hasn't been managing a fund for ten years, but in the seven plus years that he has, very few can match his combination of stellar returns and...
Did you ever meet Peter Lynch
I never met him, but I interviewed at Fidelity on several occasions. I was obsessed with getting a job there because I wanted to be the next Peter Lynch and eventually run the Magellan fund. The last time I interviewed with Fidelity, which was right before I took the job at Friess Associates, I got as far as meeting with Jeff Vinik Lynch's initial successor as manager of the Magellan fund . He asked me only two questions, which will stick in my mind forever. First, he asked, What is the bond...
Is there some significance to the name of the firm or are you just partial to
The firm is named after my great-grandfather, William Gladstone Walton, who was given the nickname Reindeer for a famous trek he conceived and led. Much of what I know about him I learned from my grandfather, who passed away last year at the age of one hundred, narrowly missing the feat of having lived in three separate centuries. In 1892, at the age of twenty-three, Reindeer Walton left England to work as a missionary in northern Canada. He typically traveled over two thousand miles a year by...
Against the Current
Imagine two swimmers a mile apart on a river who decide to have a race, each swimming to the other's starting point. There is a strong current. The swimmer heading downstream wins. Is she the better swimmer Obviously this is a nonsensical question. An Olympic swimmer could lose to a novice if the current is strong enough. Now consider two money managers one only buys stocks and is up an average of 25 percent per year for the period while the other only sells stocks and is up 10 percent per year...
She didnt know that you took out a homeequity loan
She knew about the loan, but she didn't know what I did with the money. What did you tell her you were going to do with the money I did tell her that I was going to invest it, but I told her that I was going to invest it in a conservative dividend play that would give us a greater return than the rate we had to pay on the home-equity loan. That was my intention. But once I had the money I thought, I'm not going to put this into some boring dividend play to make a few dollars on the spread...
Jack D Schwager
While the methods of investment described in this book are believed to be effective there is no guarantee that the methods will be profitable in specific applications, owing to the risk that is involved in investing of almost any kind. Moreover, readers are specifically advised that the author may invest in certain of the traders about which he is writing or has written and or may be affiliated with hedge fund s that so invest with such persons or entities. Neither the publisher nor the author...
Stuart Walton
In June 1999, at the peak Of his career, after eight years establishing one of the. most extraordinary stock trading track records of the 1990s, and with 150 million under management, Stuart Walton returned all money to his investors and walked away from trading completely. The emotional repercussions of a marital breakup were interfering with his ability to focus on trading, and he did not feel it was right to manage money until he could once again devote 100 percent energy and enthusiasm to...