Chris:
No, I've been a high roller only once. Although I may be reckless on the personal level my investment attitude has evolved from exposure to respected individuals and their philosophies. These influences have ranged from Dr. Collander to a 9-figure friend in the business. Collander, for example, uses mutual funds and forgets about it. He said -- losely quoted, "Anything new you hear is old hat to Wall Street insiders." He had us watch the film "Barbarians at the Gate."
I have never been sure. Anyone who is sure is probably deluding themseff. So "anymore" does not apply.
I began investing as a kid with a few shares, about 50 as I recall, of RCC, Royal Crown Cola. That bold entry followed my sampeling their newly released "Dietrite" cola. Interesting times; I was close to the Dr. Peper, Pepsi, and Coke evolution -- of course, I sold out a bit earlier than I might have. Owning RCC was a personal pleasure. I actually felt like a member of the RCC team -- me and Jerry Lewis both on the same team; year-end reports included samples -- exciting times for a kid. From there I moved into quality, lower-cap chemicals (Atlas). I guess you could say I bought corporations, that were personally interesting -- companies I would really work for, companies I felt were positioned to produce.
Greed wiped me out, totally out, about 15 years ago. Wednesday I had so damned many cocoa futures I felt like Hersey -- thousands and thousands of metric tons, all on maximum margin. Boy if that had swung the other way I'd be writing texts on commodity trading. Alas, I recieved the call Thursday -- "ALL holdings were gone" -- a margin call! The cocoa cartel stepped in to support the price; those SOBs. I took the risk knowing both the up- and down-side potentials. So I started over. No one to blame but myself.
Enough raveing.
Ciao, Ted |
