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Strategies & Market Trends : The Art of Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (2141)	12/17/2021 6:48:39 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10491

Wisdom of Jesse: “*If there was any easy money lying around, no one would be forcing it into your pocket*.” - Jesse Lauriston Livermore The post I am replying to from back in August is one of the key reasons why I didn't invest in BABA as it hit my target. As Jesse Livermore said, nobody pushes easy money into your pocket. And the fact that so many people were pounding the table on BABA was alarming to me. It reminded me of "missing" on another great deal back in the dot-com era. A broker (I think Oppenheimer) called to make it clear that they'd be willing to do me a big favor if I were to bring in my business to them. The big favor was being let in on the pre-ipo of a major tech company. Later that night I had a conversation about it with my girlfriend (who was super smart and had a structured derivatives desk at a major firm). It went like this: Oppenheimer called me today to let me in on pre-ipo of XYZ. I turned them down. What?! Why did you do that? Because I could. What the hell does that mean? The way this market is, you get in on the ipo ahead of time and the stock doubles and triples on the first day. Yes, yes. So why did you turn him down. Because I could. I mean who am I to this guy to be deserving of such generosity? I am not some hedge fund manager and I don't have an 8-digit account with them. So why is he offering it to me instead of offering it to his mother or his cousin? In fact, why is it that he even has some shares to spare? How come it is not oversubscribed like everything else? My girlfriend laughed. You are right. You turned them down because you could! (she said sarcastically)...you turned them down because you thought about it. Well, there wasn't much thinking needed. Nobody pushes a sure thing onto you - least of all on Wall Street. ------------ That IPO turned out to be a flop. And later it joined a succession of companies that each merged to die. You could have recouped all your losses from the dot-com bubble if only you had shorted them every time they merged with another company.