It’s interesting to see how different people react to me. My TV appearances, trading strategy, big mouth, book, DVD, blog, etc all seem to stir up a wide range of emotions. Young people love my story—it’s inspirational, trading seems fun and easy, no bosses, wear a bathrobe, don’t wear a bathrobe, whatever. They also appreciate how I’m trying to open this game up to everyone, young or old, rich or poor. People around my age are always polite to my face, but I can tell they’re somewhat to very annoyed by my non-stop TIM promotion, especially on my Facebook profile.
As for older folks—the kind of people who use the word folks—they can’t understand why a trader would ever go back to trading less than 2% of his accumulated assets over the years, unless he’s lost it all.
Well, I’ve got some answers for everybody out there.
1. My story might be inspirational, but when I was making the most money, I was spoiled by a once-or-maybe-a-twice-in-a-lifetime bull market, I was aided by blatant price manipulation, I was naïve enough to keep betting all my money every time and most importantly, I was dumb enough not to know the difference. There’s still plenty of microcrapper volatility (see recent plays COIN, STEN, IDMI, SHZ, DARA) and money to be made (both long and short), but the manipulation is tougher to track, the patterns aren’t as easy anymore (they evolve, you gotta adapt). And, to be good to great, you’re gonna have to devote a lot of time to learning about all the variables and the subtleties of the marketplace (I can and will explain them all, but all this time writing/publicizing takes away from my trading so do as I teach, not as I do) (which, ironically, since I’m not a great trader in the first place, is exactly what I do teach, aka you can do sooooooooo much better than me)2. Despite whatever Wall Street snobs say, this stuff should be open and understandable to all. We should be totally honest with each other, there’s no need to be embarrassed of your losses–it’s only embarrassing if you don’t learn from them! There’ll always be suckers–total idiots and stubborn people might learn—thankfully (or else we’d have nobody to take money from!)—but with enough sharing of knowledge and experiences, we can help each other to enjoy safer and more profitable trading.3. As nearly all my actions indicate, I really don’t care what people think of me, I’ve got a lot of teaching to do and to find my students, I’m gonna search everywhere. Facebook is a great place—if not the best place—to find them.
4. Dinosaurs: Great wealth and trading gains don’t excite me as much as cutting through all the industry BS and helping others does. I haven’t lost everything, I’m only 30% off my highs (due to me ignoring my trading rules!), but to popularize this game, I’ve gone back to my roots so people with $5k, $10k, $25k can see EXACTLY how I build my account without the use of leverage. Trust me, I never saw it coming either, for a Wall Street kinda guy to taking on the role of a social worker?!?!?—must be all those damn Philsophy classes I took in college!
Granted, I think that by detailing PennyStocking to the world (and over the years, creating several millionaires in the process), I think I’ll be richer than ever, but even if I only sell two copies of PennyStocking for the rest of my life, I’ll blog often and freely, answering any and all questions in the FORUMS
After all, the beauty of trading is that it doesn’t just create great wealth, it also teaches us great lessons. And, teaching those lessons offers a greater high to which profits alone can never compare.