the "TokyoMex" article (from the WSJ)
Cyber Cache: CyberCache:
TokyoMex, a Fool's Fool, Lives Larger Than Life
7/8/97 1:00 PM ET
By Cory Johnson
Staff Reporter
It's a sticky summer afternoon in midtown Manhattan and the basement bar at Burrito Mama's, a tiny Mexican joint, is no relief.
The heat from the kitchen is like a blast furnace, and the pulsing salsa music from the stereo only emphasizes the tropical feeling. But rather than Telemundo, or even ESPN, the TV in the corner is tuned to CNBC. TokyoMex sits at the bar across from the cash register -- his cash register, and his restaurant -- cursing Ralph Lauren (RL:NYSE) to high heaven.
"Ralph Luh-RAW; I'm getting screwed," he says in a thick Japanese accent, pronouncing the name of the Bronx-born Ralph Lauren (nee Lifshitz) as if it were French. "Fuck Ralph Luh-RAW, man. Shit. Jesus." His fingers fly across his Satellite 205cds laptop to call up his Waterhouse online trading account. He sells his 1,000 shares of RL, which he'd purchased only this morning at 28, at 27 1/4. "Somebody is selling a lot of this. I outta here."
TokyoMex is a hyperactive poster on Internet investing bulletin boards, a legend on the Motley Fool, and by all accounts (mostly his own) a hyperactive trader. Born in Seoul in 1959 of Japanese and Korean descent, his given name is Paku Matsudai, though the Puerto Rican women who work for him -- and to whom he speaks Spanish -- know him only as "Joe." But to thousands of Motley Fool devotees, he's known simply as TokyoMex, and his personality tends to dominate boards, chat rooms and Mexican restaurants -- often all at once.
I first met him in New York at a Motley Fool party on April Fool's Day. Smiling and well dressed, he was hammered and gregarious -- the kind of drunk who is so intense, you take a step back when he turns your way. When I looked at some of his postings the next day, I figured the misspellings and bad grammar were a function of booze and English-as-a-second-language. Only later would I learn that he's mostly sober when he's online, and English is about his sixth language, after hearing him speak his two native tongues, not to mention some French, Arabic and Spanish. TokyoMex will use whatever he can to get his point across. And how.
"He always tells it like it is, from his point of view," says Karen Kosoy, a.k.a. TMFKaren, who hosts a daily Motley Fool chat. "He has a dynamic personality and is always extremely hospitable to his online friends." That hospitality, however, can end when TokyoMex sees wrongheaded postings, or better yet, when he makes an astute trade and then fires off scathing sorties of postings and instant messages. "He likes to brag a bit about some of his trades, but hey, that's Joe; why not?" says Sharon Wagner, a.k.a. TMF Spirit. "TokyoMex is a very kind guy who tries to be helpful to anyone seeking help. He is well liked in Fooldom."
TokyoMex, like many, is new to the Internet, and new to investing. As a teenager he ran away to Guadalajara, Mexico, to study painting with a muralist. He served time in a Mexican jail, and when he returned home, went straight and narrow, attending law school in Japan. He spent 14 years as an attorney with Korean multinational Hyundai Group and was stationed in Seoul, Tokyo, Dusseldorf, Paris, Monte Carlo and London.
"My job was taking care of problems, wherever they happened," he says. "They fly me into Amsterdam, Riyadh [Saudi Arabia], Tripoli [Libya] -- you think investing is tough, try suing Quaddaffi. The money was good, and the expenses! I would spend $20,000 a month on entertainment; in the '80s my entertainment budget alone was $300,000 to $500,000 a year. But I'm living out of a hotel for two weeks out of the month, no life, no girlfriend, always calling Madame Mayflower. I just got fed up."
So in 1995 he arranged a $1.5 million severance ("I know too much, they have to pay," he says), bought a 1,500-square-foot loft in Manhattan near the United Nations building and promptly poured half his money into the market. His wife, Misun Park, and daughter, Mimi Chloe, 7, moved from London to join him. After enrolling his daughter in the prestigious United Nations school, he diddled with some other projects and bought three Mexican restaurants, before closing two. But after a year, he became fed up with the lousy service he says he got from a Merrill Lynch-managed trading account, so he struck out on his own. "I went to Wiz," he says. "I got computer, modem and America Online." And TokyoMex was born.
The first stock he followed on the Motley Fool was Iomega (IOM:NYSE). "I bought it in April 1996 at 38," he says. "I traded it like crazy. That's how I learned to trade. But I got out of that shit and moved onto good stocks. Iomega suck!" Now he trades a $1.5 million portfolio, in and out of $250,000 a day. He spends his morning trading from a desktop computer in his loft, the afternoons on the laptop at his restaurant. ("Thank God," says Burrito Mama's manager Sacheen Valera, 23. "The laptop is the only thing that keeps him quiet.")
His postings on the boards began coming in waves, but it wasn't just their financial content that caught the eye of other investors; it was their flavor. "Those early posts really caught his essence," says Kosoy. "He came across as an extremely intelligent individual who actually puts great thought and research into his investing. But it was more than that. You could see he was well-traveled and educated, and loved to tell stories. You ought to check out the Motley Fool IOM board graveyard for some hilarious TokyoMex stories. They were written a while back and it was almost like the Iliad by Homer!"
Indeed, these posts are epic by Motley Fool standards, about far more than the vicissitudes of the market. Rather, they chronicle the life and lifestyle of TokyoMex. They're about reasons for the investing, rather than the investing for investing's sake. "I don't do this only for the money, I have money," he says. "I have family money before this, but I never touch it! I can not stand bourgeois assholes who are so into their measly 20%-to-30% gains regardless of humanity and values. That's why I willing to get all over these assholes who are hyping stocks on line. You have to have a life. You have to have fun and know what important in life."
One night last week, TokyoMex and I were on our way to dinner, and I asked him to take me someplace where everybody knew his name (at least, one of his names). He leaned forward in the cab and said something in Arabic to the driver. Next thing I knew, the cab was pulling up to Scores, a strip joint/sports bar on the East Side. "Everybody know me here," he said. "I spent $4,000 here Friday night." The bouncer, however, had never seen him before. Neither had the doorman. Nor had the manager, the two women at the concession stand, the coat check girl, the first stripper he saw and raked his fingernails across her back, the bartender or the other two strippers he kissed on the cheek, saying, "Hi, honey. You miss me?"
He turned to me and said, "You buy drinks?" So I ordered a wine and a beer and gave the bartender my charge card. On a giant-screen TV, the Yankees were in extra innings against the Braves. One of the strippers, a baseball fan who actually had seen TokyoMex before, sat down next to me. "He's very honest, he likes the girls here," said Eva Fialla-Dori. "And he tells them just what he's thinking. Very honest and forthright. That's so rare here."
The Yanks went on to win 1-0. I turned around to see two strippers writhing all over TokyoMex; then I noticed a plate of strawberries and bottle of champagne in front of him. I motioned over to the bartender and asked: "Uh, just what is my tab at right now?" The bartender disappeared, then came back with the check in his hand and said: "Three hundred dollars."
"Three hundred dollars! Three hundred dollars!" I hollered. I grabbed TokyoMex by the shoulder. "Joe, what the hell are you doing! I'm going to have to pay for that out of my own pocket! Are you out of your freakin' mind!" He turned to me with a big smile. "Relax, loose up," he said. "Don't be so cheap. You can't work all time, invest all time. You have to have a life, you have to have good times. You have to have stories to tell."
CyberCache, a collection of stories from the world of Internet investing, appears every other week. |
