TIM $14,336 (up $188 on the week)

Glad That My EQUITIES Magazine Keynote Speech Was A Hit…Oh Yeah, Shouldn’t I Have Been Trading? (No positions)

At last night’s delicious pre-event dinner (free food tastes better); I discovered that being the keynote speaker of an EQUITIES Magazine event was kind of a big deal. Really. People knew me.

I was very important. Maybe it was because after my speech, I would be elevated to the same ranks as the keynote speakers from their last event: billionaire Ken Fisher (Forbes columnist, manages $45 billion (truly) and inventor the small-cap value strategy!), Robert Greifeld (President and CEO of NASDAQ) and Thomas Donohue (President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce).

Yup, click that link, those industry big wigs really were in the same spot I was today—I told you this was a big deal! The only question is how in the world is this happening to me at this stage in my career? As I thought about this before speaking to nearly 200 institutional and private investors, fund managers and finance-types, it hit me. I am the Forrest Gump Of Finance. It was then I felt as though I had to go peeeeeeee.

No, this isn’t some self-annointed title (ok, maybe it is, but I think I’ve earned it), I’m not retarded nor do I have a junkie girlfriend—but this industry is so desperate for somebody, anybody, not to be boring when they talk finance and not be on the take somehow that I seemingly have a bright future just talking honestly and teaching people about what I love. (It helps that talking about what I love will make other people money–probly even moreso than those industry big wigs because my strategy works much better with smaller accounts.) There’s somethin’ wrong with all these other market pundits, they’re old, ugly, bald, introverted, too narrow-minded, too busy, too rich, too accustomed to lying. There’s crazy pundits, pundits who are wrong too often, pundits who get paid to promote stocks, angry pundits, uptight pundits, pundits who get nervous on camera, pundits who can’t speak in front of crowds, smelly pundits. That…that’s about it.

Herein lies the beauty of the financial media game: practically anyone can get to the top—you don’t need to manage billions of dollars or head a multi-billion dollar company, you just need to be honest, coherent, relevant and entertaining. It helps if you have an interesting backstory (Forrest Gump pulled in $400 million for a reason), but I don’t think it’s required. Sure, those who can’t do, teach and talk, blah blah blah, but I’m getting more offers now to manage funds than I ever did when I was actually looking to raise capital (too bad now that’s the last thing on my mind). So, the talking head game does have its benefits.

But, as you’ll read in my book, I am Forrest Gumping my way through this journey and I have no idea how it’ll all end—I’m just loving every second of it. I’m particularly pleased that today’s crowd seemed to enjoy my speech as they mobbed me afterwards (pictures and possibly video to follow) and the 100 copies of my book that I brought disappeared within minutes (free books read better).

And yes, I shoulda woulda coulda skipped this event and focused on trading today, but welcome to my new reality—TIM is incredibly important to me, but so is getting TIM’s message out there. I have no doubt I’ll be forced again to choose between the two.

PS CPSL was a great overnight short (first down day after the runup, but not exactly pprfect), RCH should follow this same pattern on Monday, SOLF should follow the exact same pattern (first up day after a breakdown) in reverse by gapping higher Monday, I dunno, I’m exhausted, I’m really gonna take a nap now—I can’t afford to get sick, busy busy busy week ahead!