Are you a man of Honor, Integrity and Honesty ???
Or
Are you a bleating fool, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beasts who sired you and then killed themselves in recognition of what they had done?
Interesting lead question, No?
A long time ago, in my early-mid 20s, I adopted a very strange and unusual outlook towards society/humanity in general.
This outlook was born out of disgust/revulsion when I would very clearly see people behind their facades.
I have seen so much “ugly” in people in my life.
It started in my early gambling years and progressed ever since and at almost every turn I was proven to be correct.
In the world of gambling/money people are not able to hide their true monster selves, no matter how hard they try.
Even who seem like the nicest people outside of gambling, turn into ugly/disgusting beasts when they start losing.
In my whole gambling life, the exceptions to this can easily be counted on my fingers.
In general, people are just plain rotten.
When I first introduced my humanity outlook to my girlfriend (eventual wife), she was quite taken back and thought I was insane and maybe I was/am.
However, as the years went by, slowly, step by step, year by year, she started to agree with me and now is a full pledged member of my insanity.
My outlook >>> “Every single person in this world is a complete and utter asshole in my eyes, until they prove me otherwise”
Contemptuously cynical ??? You Bet !!!
I have seen the worst of humanity so many times in my life (strangers, friends, even family) that I started getting used to it and expect it.
It got so bad, I started looking in the mirror expecting to find a monster.
But you know what? No matter how hard I looked, there wasn’t anything there to scare me.
And this brings me to TraderPulse.com, a trading website I launched in 2001 (eventually closed in late 2009 to focus exclusively on Epica Capital L.P.)
Membership wasn’t cheap at $350/month, so I wanted to make sure it was well worth it.
It included daily and weekly newsletters outlining ideas, thoughts on the market, updated thoughts on positions, etc.
It also included a live chatroom and 8am to 4.30pm every trading day I would offer trading insight, shared ideas, thoughts, stops, targets, most of my trades and all in real time.
Only trades I would share in the chatroom would be where the profit target was a minimum of 50 cents, never anything less.
I wanted to avoid any possibility of me closing a position while a member was opening it.
My first and only priority was always the members, everything else was secondary.
Each and every day I did as much as possible to help all the subs, far and beyond the call of duty.
In the evenings and weekends I would call those that struggled and coached them whenever needed or wanted.
In 9 years, as many traders passed through TraderPulse.com one thing was always constant:
My integrity, honestly, morality and ethics was never EVER in question.
These virtues are of great importance to me and forever will be so.
I very clearly know the difference between right and wrong, between moral and unethical, between a friend and a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
For me black or gray are unacceptable colors !!!
I have written before about the need for traders to find a trading niche/specialty within the market that becomes their bread and butter.
If found, this would become a major tool in a trader’s pursuit of financial trading success.
Today let me explore a different type of trading niche/specialty and see which side of the fence the reader stands on.
Let’s take a hypothetical/or not trader and call him the “Supreme”, a title out American Horror Story TV show which basically means the leader of the coven.
As with all stories, there is always the beginning and always there is the END, which in this case is still left to be played out.
Before this trader came to be known as the Supreme, he spent years trying to find his trading niche/specialty in the market.
He struggled and found very limited success, until one day he had an epiphany.
“Alone I stand, but in numbers I run”
The trader started focusing in on a very specific group of stocks, the so called hidden gems, with the following qualifications:
Stocks that hardly anyone follows, trades or even heard of.
Stocks that have miniscule daily volume, usually below 100k shares/day and often below 10k shares/day.
Stocks with extremely low market caps, usually 100m or less and often very significantly below this threshold (the lower the better).
Stocks with very low/tiny outstanding share counts and even much lower floats.
The trader knew very well that buying such stocks is a very difficult game, since they basically trade by appointment, rarely move at all and generally have highly suspect business models.
However, where there is a will there is a way for mountains to be moved.
So the trader decided to promote these so called hidden gems to the world.
He started using social media to bring attention to these stocks and slowly built a following.
As his following grew, his long recommendations started to move these stocks, in some cases very significantly, and even more followers joined his army.
The “Supreme” was born and then he opened a paid stock service.
Within a short time the number of his followers exploded into the thousands, many thousands, and membership to his paid service grew.
As with all armies, the high command and its high rank officers rarely put their lives on the line, but are always ready to sacrifice their troops to win any battle.
So the Supreme would buy a stock that perfectly fit his qualifications and announce it to his army, which would immediately try to outbid each other and jam the stock significantly higher.
Eventually, the stock would reach its apex as the army exhausted itself and would come tumbling down and eventually give back most of the gains.
The Supreme would close his long position at some point with impressive gains and then boost about his profit and his ability to pick winners.
The Supreme’s inner circle and some quick on the draw troops did well in the stock with quick gains, while the rest of the troops were left holding the bag.
This continued day after day, after day, after day.
Soon the Supreme decided to open his books to his followers using profit.ly, a smart marketing move on his part to impress his army and new recruits even more.
Understanding the importance of his so called “stock guru” status and that eventually he would exhaust his army, the Supreme came up with another interesting weapon.
He started writing occasional bullish articles on his long picks for SeekingAlpha.com.
SeekingAlpha.com is the wild, wild west of financial journalism that basically allows anybody to write anything they want.
Somehow miraculously that site got Yahoo finance to list its articles under stock news and this would become the Supreme’s gateway to further stock promotion beyond his army.
Off course the Supreme’s inner circle also started publishing articles about his stocks, which is a crafty way to embellish the illusion of legitimacy.
Timing of the articles would wary depending on the situation, sometimes the same day while other times a week or 2 later.
The articles were a special tool, not to be overused, but rather offered in times of need if original pump didn’t work or for specially planned situations.
It was a way to get the general public involved in the pumpathon, while throwing his army a bone.
The trader, now the Supreme, had finally evolved into and reached “master stock guru” status and many became in awe of him.
How fitting are these Simon and Garfunkel lyrics?
And the people bowed and prayed, To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warnings, In the worlds that it was forming
And the sign said, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, And tenement halls”
So, is the Supreme a first class stock trader or something completely different , a hideous beast hiding in plain sight sucking the blood of the blind?
Before trying to answer this question, it is very important to outline that every person needs to take responsibility for their own actions.
If you follow blindly, you will run into a brick wall and it will be painful. Educate yourself because knowledge = power !!!
The Supreme in nothing more than a glorified pump and dump artist, lacking morality, ethics and integrity.
But beyond that, he is actually breaking the law and SEC rules.
Such a trader, instead of using knowledge and trading skills fairly, is in the business of manipulating stocks for personal gain.
There is no denying this fact, it is crystal clear.
Stock manipulation is illegal and such a trader should be banished for life by the SEC from the financial industry and prison time should be seriously considered in such a case.
Such stock manipulation is far worse than any case of insider trading the SEC is so concerned about.
For now, the SEC is turning a blind eye to such matters, but this will change eventually and maybe much sooner than later.
Personally, I find such behavior disgusting, revolting, outrageous, detestable, hideous, etc.
Every time I see it or hear of it I just want to throw up.
It is just another reminder to me how sad and ugly humanity can be and reinforces my outmost cynicism towards people in general.
After numerous years of private life, I joined the Twitter community for numerous reasons and main ones being:
I wanted to give something back to the trading community, offer food for thought to traders and share my playbook with those willing to learn a different style of trading.
I wanted to offer knowledge to those that seek it and be of help to them.
I had/have zero agendas of any kind geared towards personal gain and I think that’s pretty evident in all my posts.
Since joining Twitter, I have now decided to also shed light on stock manipulation.
Here is a message to all the Supremes out there:
youtube.com
This is your wakeup call !!!
Happy Trading
Michail
|
