As noted, I began 2006 with a portfolio very different from that of the beginning of 2005.  I had 20% invested in Asian funds and about 60% in resources stocks, particularly metal mining companies and energy producers.  I also had 10% in Ship Finance Limited (SFL), a lessor of oil tankers, and 10% in cash.  [...]

If you recall, 2004 was a very volatile year for me, but things mostly worked out in the end. This was not the case in 2005. I began the year with over 90% of my (margined by 20%) portfolio still in NFI and IMH. I was also short about 60% of my [...]

The April subprime mortgage originator meltdown halved the value of my portfolio, but my wealth was still near where it had been the previous September.  As summer came around, things began to recover and the shock began to wear off.  It wasn’t the Amazon debacle, which took about a year to shake. 
I had just [...]

As has been related, on April Fool’s Day 2004 my net worth was at a high and almost twice the level of the previous September. Year to date I was up almost 40%, mostly on an overweight positions in subprime mortgage lenders. It was the perfect environment: low mortgage rates, easy access for [...]

I was still in short mode in 2003, and in early February the market appeared headed down for what I expected to be its final dip. I managed to catch the lows, which is not really what you want to be doing when short selling. By the end of May I felt pretty [...]

For the first ten months of 2002 I could do no wrong. I was heavily short Internet/technology and long MREITs. There were minor flare-ups in March, when tech rallied sharply for a few days, and July, when MREITs collapsed, but both were short in duration and I was able to hold through. [...]

I continued to short in 2001 and made money as things were going down well before 9/11.  On the long side, I was holding First Philippine Fund, Asia-Pacific Fund (APB) and a Japanese small-cap fund (JOF).  These didn’t work out.  I was able to make a little money buying into Conseco on news of Gary [...]

E-Trade and a position in Remedy, a CRM company, helped me regain some of what I had lost in AMZN.    Also helping was the fact that I was a Java consultant working in New York City and financial firms, flush with origination wealth, were willing to pay a lot to secure talent.  In July, I [...]

As the new year approached, AMZN kept rising and so did my anxiety.  Coincidentally I was reading Moby Dick at the time and AMZN became my white whale.  It was somehow comforting to know that I wasn’t the only one heading inexorably for disaster.  Its funny to think, when feeling the pain of these situations, [...]

I’ll talk a bit about my trading background over the next few entries. I’ve been investing since I was 14, but only trading heavily in the last 7 years. Before that I was mainly holding mutual and closed-end funds. I only discovered the need to look at my stocks throughout the day [...]