Paul - As I recall you mentioned in one of your earlier notes that you use margin. Well, about once a month I get "the" question from the wife "have you paid off the margin in your account yet?" I was hoping you could guide me as to how much margin to use.
Well, I now have the answer. Get a load of this article - this guy drives a 1984 Oldsmobile and goes to his friend's house to watch CNBC because he's to cheap to get cable - but dies worth $36 million with a margin balance of $26 MILLION!! Life is stranger than fiction:
Copyright 1997 Chicago Tribune Company
Chicago Tribune
July 20, 1997 Sunday
A ROUTINE GUY LEAVES ESTATE OF MILLIONS
Associated Press. BEL AIR, Md. Jacob Leeder's 24-year relationship with Ann Holdorf had settled into a routine: Every afternoon, he would come over to watch the stock market news for hours because he didn't have cable.
Occasionally, they would go out to eat, usually at a cheap, cafeteria-style restaurant.
It wasn't until Leeder died that Holdorf realized all that stock-watching had paid off. He was worth $36 million.
"When we first met, he talked about us taking trips together, but we never went. As I sat there listening to the lawyer read his will, I thought, 'You son of a gun. We could have gone anywhere we wanted, anytime we wanted,"' Holdorf said.
He left her $150,000, plus a $100,000 trust fund.
Much of the estate will go to the government for taxes. Most of the remainder is earmarked for two nieces; some will go to animal rights groups and veterinary schools at the universities of Maryland and Pennsylvania.
While he loved children and animals, Leeder never married and had no pets. Holdorf said she's not dissatisfied with her inheritance. At 71, she said she wouldn't know what to do with a lot of money anyway.
She speaks lovingly of the retired Army ballistics expert she met at a singles dance and for whom she cooked almost nightly for the last 10 years. When Leeder died of prostate cancer on Feb. 22 at age 83, his will contained 17 pages of stock holdings.
The total value of the shares: $62.3 million. With a margin debt--the amount investors owe for using a stock account as collateral to borrow money--of about $26 million, the estate has a net value of about $36 million.
You would have never known it. Leeder lived in a modest home in this town about 35 miles north of Baltimore. He drove a 1984 Oldsmobile station wagon. He wore the same khakis through the summer heat, the same corduroys through the winter cold.
He also was obsessed about the stock market, spending up to eight hours a day in front of Holdorf's television watching stock market reports.
Sometimes, Holdorf would try to persuade Leeder to take a vacation or enjoy a fine meal. "He'd always say, 'Not now, the market is bad,' " she said.
Holdorf said she doesn't regret any of the time she spent with the secret millionaire. She also sees a lessons for others in all this: "Don't wait to do things when you can enjoy them now."
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
Best - Joe |
