Very Brief Me
Hey we are not really an us so much as a me.
A big me, I suppose, if based on body mass.
I have been a webmaster type person for about 1.5 decades. And now I am so owlde that I am close to the big 4-0.
That Tagline
Where did the stupid tag line come from?
American Pie.
One of the stocks I traded was up a quick 15% on earlier this year, but then the management issued convertible notes for about 1/3 the company market cap, which smashed that +15 into a -5 in about a day. The stock fell further when the capital was used to fund an acquisition.
The stupid tag line is a reminder to myself to try to invest in things I understand and try not do big positions on high volatility stuff nearly a decade into the bull market which was propped up by quantitative easing & is now seeing quantitative tightening.
I would love a sharp stock market correction so I could throw a bunch of money in the market, not watch it much, and then just eat ice cream all day.
Domain Name
A long time ago (maybe a decade ago?) I had an idea for making a website marketplace for buying and selling websites, to sort of add liquidity to the ecosystem by leveraging trends in search & other important channels. The prospective partner on that deal ultimately decided to pass on it because he was making a killing in a couple other verticals. I can’t say I blame him for going with the easier & more scalable win. Good on him!
Since then companies like SEMrush and Ahrefs have offered great data. But ultimately unless sites grow quickly the multiples on most websites are still horribly low due to heavy reliance on either the personality of the founder in the marketing (and if it sells, that is gone) OR a single dominant traffic source like Google or Facebook is the difference between profits and major losses. Flippa is a marketplace but still isn’t as good as what I was hoping to build. And there are some website brokers that have some good stuff for sale, but the web is still very illiquid & uncertain.
I have sold off a bunch of websites & figure I am probably better trading stock.
Arrogant
I think you have to be somewhat arrogant to think you will be able to actively trade and beat the broader market. Doing so is very hard, at least for me, but I am still only about a half-year into doing it more than a couple hours per year.
The reason I decided to give trading a try was a criminal fraud from the UK basically Bernie Madoff’d me. He has already been arrested and there is not a prayer in heaven nor hell he is found innocent for the intentional & malicious criminal fraud campaign he committed against me. I won’t write more about the case until trial.
I am now making sure I have more direct control of anything I invest & I am trading in part to learn it & in part to show that he did not need to be a criminal fraud pile of shit to get returns. I started trading I think in February & by August 7 was up about 5% on the total amount I have in the market, but earlier in the cycle most of that money wasn’t in the market, so really on a blended basis am perhaps up about 10% on the amount that has been invested on and off throughout the year.
Trading Ideas
I mostly try to trade internet & software related stuff because I at least know a bit about it.
The main sorts of ideas I have tried this year has been to ride trends that seem to be accelerating & to buy some trend reversals after sharp pullbacks.
I am too much of a wimp to go long (or short) Tesla, but there are many other tech plays that are plenty volatile enough to be interesting.
I have also traded a few high dividend stocks which is sort of like getting paid lowly to watch paint dry. I view those almost like index funds or bonds or something where you have money doing something for you while there isn’t any great idea at hand.
I am a big fan of Howard Lindzon’s Peloton newsletter. If I stopped trying to keep up with the web & media shifts I would probably listen to TastyTrade most of the day.