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Mad Hedge Fund Trader

What the Heck is ESG Investing?

Diary, Newsletter

It’s truly astonishing how much money is pouring into ESG investing. Maybe it was another year of blistering heat worldwide that did it. It now accounts for one-third of all US equity investments.

In 2020, BlackRock, one of the largest fund managers in the country, made a major new commitment to ESG investment by rolling out several new ETFs. I thought I’d better take him seriously, as his firm is one of the largest money managers in the world with $10 trillion in assets.

So what the heck is ESG investing?

Environmental, Social, and Governance Investing (ESG) seeks to address climate change in any way shape or form possible. Its goal is to move the economy and capital away from carbon-based energy forms, like oil (USO), natural gas (UNG), and coal, to any kind of alternative.

I am always suspicious of investment themes are politically correct and ideologically directed, as they usually end in tears. I can’t tell you how many people I know who invested their life savings in solar companies to save the world, like Solyndra, Sungevity, American Solar Direct, and Suniva, only to get wiped out when they went under.

As laudable as the goals of these companies may have been, they were unable to deal with collapsing prices, Chinese dumping, and the harsh realities of doing business in a cutthroat competitive world.

As a venture capital friend of mine once told me, “Technology is a bakery business”. If you can’t sell your products immediately, you go broke. Technology always drops prices dramatically and if you can’t stay ahead of the curve you don’t stand a chance.

Still, what I believe is not important. The fastest-growing group of new investors in the market today are Millennials, and they happen to take ESG investing very seriously.

There does seem to be a method to BlackRock’s madness. Over the past year, ESG-influenced funds have grown from 1% to 3.6% of total investment. Other major fund families like Vanguard have already jumped on the bandwagon.

ESG can include a panoply of activities, including, recycling, climate change mitigation, carbon footprint reduction, water purification, green infrastructure, environmental benefits for employees, and greenhouse gas reduction. There are many more.

There is even an ESG rating system for funds and companies produced by firms like Refinitiv, which scores 7,000 companies around the world based on their environmental sensitivity. Companies like United Utilities Group PLC, the UK’s largest water company, get an A+, while China’s Guangdong Investment Ltd, which supplies water and energy to Hong Kong, gets a D-.

It goes without saying that companies from emerging nations tend to score very poorly. So do manufacturing companies relative to service ones, and energy companies versus non-energy ones.

The ESG concept began in 2005 when UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan wrote to 50 global CEOs urging them to take climate change seriously. A major report by Ivor Knoepfel followed a year later entitled “Who Cares Wins.”

The report made the case that embedding environmental, social and governance factors in capital markets makes good business sense and leads to more sustainable markets and better outcomes for societies. The snowball has been rolling ever since.

Themed investing is not new. “Sin” stocks have long been investment pariahs, including alcohol and tobacco companies. As a result, these companies trade at permanently low multiples. The newest investment ban is on firearms-related companies.

ESG investment received a major tailwind in 2021 when the price of oil took off like a rocket. When oil prices rise, it also makes all forms of alternative energy more competitive. But over production by US fracking companies will eventually cause supply gluts that will lead to chronically lower prices. The US happens to have a new 200-year supply of oil and gas, thanks to the fracking revolution.

Saudi Arabia floated their oil monopoly, Saudi ARAMCO, raising a record $26 billion. When Saudi Arabia wants to get out of the oil and gas business, so should you. It’s not because they can’t think of new ways to spend money that they’re unloading it.

That’s why I have been advising followers to avoid energy investments like the plague for the past decade. It’s just a matter of time before alternatives rule the world. Even the oil industry won’t expand production now because they don’t want to buy at the top only to see prices collapse, as they have done many times in the past.

Who is the greenest company in America? That would be electric car and autonomous driving firm Tesla (TSLA). Perhaps ESG investing helps explain why the shares have risen 400 times since I started buying.

What is the top-performing listed stock of the last 30 years? Tobacco company Altria Group (MO), the old Philip Morris.

It’s proof that investment shaming doesn’t always work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/investments.png 424 570 Mad Hedge Fund Trader https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Mad Hedge Fund Trader2022-06-09 10:02:432022-06-09 10:21:40What the Heck is ESG Investing?
Mad Hedge Fund Trader

Quote of the Day - June 9, 2022

Diary, Newsletter, Quote of the Day

“Sometimes, when you jump off a bridge, you have to grow your wings on the way down,” said author Danielle Steele.

https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/birds.png 235 472 Mad Hedge Fund Trader https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Mad Hedge Fund Trader2022-06-09 10:00:232022-06-09 10:06:28Quote of the Day - June 9, 2022
Mad Hedge Fund Trader

June 8, 2022

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
June 8, 2022
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(FRIDAY, JUNE 17 SAN FRANCISCO STRATEGY LUNCHEON)
(A NOTE ON OPTIONS CALLED AWAY)
(SPY), (TLT)

https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png 0 0 Mad Hedge Fund Trader https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Mad Hedge Fund Trader2022-06-08 10:06:302022-06-08 14:33:07June 8, 2022
Mad Hedge Fund Trader

SOLD OUT - Friday, June 17, 2022 San Francisco Strategy Luncheon

Diary, Lunch, Newsletter

Come join me for lunch at the Mad Hedge Fund Trader’s Global Strategy Update, which I will be conducting in San Francisco on Monday, June 20, 2022. An excellent meal will be followed by a wide-ranging discussion and an extended question and answer period.

I’ll be giving you my up-to-date view on stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, precious metals, and real estate. And to keep you in suspense, I’ll be throwing a few surprises out there too. Tickets are available for $249.

I’ll be arriving at 11:30 and leaving late in case anyone wants to have a one-on-one discussion, or just sit around and chew the fat about the financial markets.

The lunch will be held at a private club in downtown San Francisco near Union Square, details of which will be emailed with your purchase confirmation.

I look forward to meeting you and thank you for supporting my research. To purchase tickets for this luncheon, please click here.

 

https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/San-francisco-e1650931095655.png 371 580 Mad Hedge Fund Trader https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Mad Hedge Fund Trader2022-06-08 10:04:312024-10-01 18:02:46SOLD OUT - Friday, June 17, 2022 San Francisco Strategy Luncheon
Mad Hedge Fund Trader

A Note on Assigned Options, or Options Called Away

Diary, Newsletter, Research

I know all of this may sound confusing at first. But once you get the hang of it, this is the greatest way to make money since sliced bread.

I still have seven positions left in my model trading portfolio, they are all deep in-the-money, and about to expire in seven trading days. That opens up a set of risks unique to these positions.

I call it the “Screw up risk.”

As long as the markets maintain current levels, ALL of these positions will expire at their maximum profit values.

They include:

Current Capital at Risk

Risk On

World is Getting Better

(TLT) 6/$124-$127 put spread             20.00%
(NVDA) 6/$120-$130 call spread       10.00%
(BRKB) 6/$260-$270 call spread       10.00%
(V) 6/$150-$160 call spread                 10.00%
(MSFT) 6/$200-$210 call spread       10.00%

Risk Off

World is Getting Worse

(SPY) 6/$430-440 put spread            -10.00%

(SPY) 6/$440-$450 put spread          -10.00%

 

With the June 17 options expiration upon us, there is a heightened probability that your short position in the options may get called away.

If it happens, there is only one thing to do: fall down on your knees and thank your lucky stars. You have just made the maximum possible profit for your position instantly.

Most of you have short option positions, although you may not realize it. For when you buy an in-the-money vertical option spread, it contains two elements: a long option and a short option.

The short options can get “assigned,” or “called away” at any time, as it is owned by a third party, the one you initially sold the put option to when you initiated the position.

You have to be careful here because the inexperienced can blow their newfound windfall if they take the wrong action, so here’s how to handle it correctly.

Let’s say you get an email from your broker telling you that your call options have been assigned away.

I’ll use the example of the S&P 500 (SPY) June 2022 $430-$440 in-the-money vertical BEAR PUT spread.

For what the broker had done in effect is allow you to get out of your put spread position at the maximum profit point days before the June 17 expiration date. In other words, what you bought for $9.00 on May 23 is now worth $10.00, giving you a near-instant profit of $1,200 or 11.11%!

All have to do is call your broker and instruct them to “exercise your long position in your (SPY) June 2022 $440 puts to close out your short position in the (SPY) June 2022 $430 puts.”

You must do this in person. Brokers are not allowed to exercise options automatically, on their own, without your expressed permission.

This is a perfectly hedged position, with both options having the same name and the same expiration date, so there is no risk. The name, number of shares, and number of contracts are all identical, so you have no exposure at all.

Calls are a right to buy shares at a fixed price before a fixed date, and one options contract is exercisable into 100 shares.

Short positions usually only get called away for dividend-paying stocks or interest-paying ETFs. There are strategies out here that try to capture dividends the day before they are payable. Exercising an option is one way to do that.

Weird stuff like this happens in the run-up to options expirations like we have coming.

A call owner may need to buy a long (SPY) position after the close, and exercising his long (SPY) call is the only way to execute it.

Adequate shares may not be available in the market, or maybe a limit order didn’t get done by the market close.

There are thousands of algorithms out there which may arrive at some twisted logic that the puts need to be exercised.

Many require a rebalancing of hedges at the close every day which can be achieved through option exercises.

And yes, options even get exercised by accident. There are still a few humans left in this market to blow it by writing shoddy algorithms.

And here’s another possible outcome in this process.

Your broker will call you to notify you of an option called away, and then give you the wrong advice on what to do about it.

There is a further annoying complication that leads to a lot of confusion. Lately, brokers have resorted to sending you warnings that exercises MIGHT happen to help mitigate their own legal liability.

They do this even when such an exercise has zero probability of happening, such as with a short call option in a LEAPS that has a year or more left until expiration. Just ignore these, or call your broker and ask them to explain.

This generates tons of commissions for the broker but is a terrible thing for the trader to do from a risk point of view, such as generating a loss by the time everything is closed and netted out.

There may not even be an evil motive behind the bad advice. Brokers are not investing a lot in training staff these days. In fact, I think I’m the last one they really did train.

Avarice could have been an explanation here but I think stupidity and poor training and low wages are much more likely.

Brokers have so many ways to steal money legally that they don’t need to resort to the illegal kind.

This exercise process is now fully automated at most brokers but it never hurts to follow up with a phone call if you get an exercise notice. Mistakes do happen.

Some may also send you a link to a video of what to do about all this.

If any of you are the slightest bit worried or confused by all of this, come out of your position RIGHT NOW at a small profit! You should never be worried or confused about any position tying up YOUR money.

Professionals do these things all day long and exercises become second nature, just another cost of doing business.

If you do this long enough, eventually you get hit. I bet you don’t.

 

 

Calling All Options!

 

https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Call-Options.png 345 522 Mad Hedge Fund Trader https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Mad Hedge Fund Trader2022-06-08 10:02:452022-06-08 14:33:21A Note on Assigned Options, or Options Called Away
Douglas Davenport

June 8, 2022 - Quote of the Day

Diary, Newsletter

“Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau,” said economist Irving Fisher….just before the 1929 stock market crash.

https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/ticker-sweeper.png 312 528 Douglas Davenport https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Douglas Davenport2022-06-08 10:00:322022-06-08 13:59:47June 8, 2022 - Quote of the Day
Mad Hedge Fund Trader

June 7, 2022

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
June 7, 2022
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(THE SECOND AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION),
(INDU), (SPY), (QQQ), (GLD), (DBA),
(TSLA), (GOOGL), (XLK), (IBB), (XLE)

https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png 0 0 Mad Hedge Fund Trader https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Mad Hedge Fund Trader2022-06-07 10:04:442022-06-07 14:06:25June 7, 2022
Mad Hedge Fund Trader

Quote of the Day - June 7, 2022

Diary, Newsletter, Quote of the Day

"Risk control is the best route to loss avoidance. Risk avoidance, on the other hand, is likely to lead to return avoidance as well." said Howard Marks, founder of distressed debt giant, Oaktree Capital Management.

Foot on banana peel

https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Foot-on-banana-peel.jpg 246 282 Mad Hedge Fund Trader https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Mad Hedge Fund Trader2022-06-07 10:00:002022-06-07 14:05:04Quote of the Day - June 7, 2022
Mad Hedge Fund Trader

June 6, 2022

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
June 6, 2022
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(THE MAD HEDGE TRADERS & INVESTORS SUMMIT IS ON FOR JUNE 14-16)
(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or PUTIN’S DEAD END),
(VIX), (HYG), (JNK), (PTON), (W), (MSTR), (RDFN), (BYND), (F), (TSLA), (NVDA)

https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png 0 0 Mad Hedge Fund Trader https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png Mad Hedge Fund Trader2022-06-06 10:06:412022-06-06 11:37:16June 6, 2022
Mad Hedge Fund Trader

The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or Putin’s Dead End

Diary, Free Research, Newsletter

The current consensus for market strategists is that volatility will remain high.

Please pinch me because I think I died and went to heaven. For every time the Volatility Index (VIX) tops $30, I make another 10%-15% for my followers.

The bulk of market players are now obsessing whether we are entering a recession or not, as if their investment faith depended on it.

Recession, resmession.

As long as I can keep making a 65.40% trailing one-year return, while the Dow Average is off -4.2% during the same time period, I could care less what the economy is actually going to do.

After an impressive 380-point, 10% rally in the S&P 500, it now looks like the stock market is failing once again. Best case, we revisit this year’s low at 3,800. Worst case, we break to new lows at 3,600. The very worst case, we break below 3,500 and wish you had never heard of the stock market.

If you are a trader, there is a fantastic opportunity here to buy low, sell high, and retire early. If you are disciplined, you still have a ton of cash left over from the end of 2021 (I was 100% cash) and will be cherry-picking on the big down days.

It's really very simple. The longer you have been doing this, the easier it gets and the more money you will make. After 52 years of practice, I can do this in my sleep.

As the bear market worsens, we are seeing old asset classes return from the dead like the revived dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. Call convertible bonds are the velociraptors of the bunch.

Take the main junk bond ETF like the iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond Fund (HYG) and the SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond Fund (JNK), which have seen yields double from 3% to over 6% in only six months.

If you are willing to take on more risk, individual busted convertible bonds yield infinitely more. You know all the names. Peloton (PTON) converts are paying a 10.4% yield to maturity, Wayfair (W) 11.0%, MicroStrategy (MSTR) 13.1%, Redfin (RDFN) 14.5%, and Beyond Meat (BYND) 19.5%. Buy ten of these and even if one goes under, you still earn a decent double-digit return.

Having run a convertible bond trading desk for ten years, I can tell you that the risk/reward balance for many individuals with this investment class is just right.

As my summer military duty approaches, information about the Ukraine War is pouring into me. I will share with you what I can, what has been declassified for the war is still a major factor in your investment outcomes. I have been able to use my “top secret” status for 50 years,= to your benefit.

The amazing thing is that in this modern age, information goes from “top secret” to declassified in only a day. It is a new strategy used by the current administration that is working incredibly well. Information is more valuable shared than locked up.

I have been getting a lot of questions from readers as to why Vladimir Putin committed such a disastrous error by invading Ukraine as he is considered a smart guy. My initial response was that he surrounded himself with “yes” men who only told him what he wanted to hear, leading to terrible outcomes, which I have seen happen many times.

The costs of the war for Putin have so far been enormous; 50,000 casualties, 1,000 tanks, 1,300 armored vehicles, banishment from the western economy, the loss of $1 trillion in foreign held assets, and the decline of the national GDP from $1.5 trillion to $1 trillion.

The costs are about to substantially rise. The US is now sending over its most advanced artillery systems, the MRLS, or Multiple Rocket Launch System, which can hit any target within 300 miles with an accuracy of one meter. All you have to do is dial in the latitude and longitude of the target and it never misses. This one weapon will certainly bring the war to a stalemate and consign it to page three of the newspapers.

But after doing a ton more research, my view has evolved. Putin has in fact launched a Resource War against the entire rest of the world. The result has been to boost the price of practically everything Russia produces, including oil ($123 billion), refined petroleum products ($63 billion), iron & steel ($28 billion), coal ($17 billion), fertilizer ($13 billion), wood ($12 billion), wheat ($9 billion), aluminium ($8 billion), platinum, palladium, uranium.

There is also the inflation angle. While the US benefits from many of these high prices as well, they have raised the US inflation rate from 5% to 8.3%. That damages the election prospects of Biden and the Democrats. High inflation improves the election of prospects of a former president who Putin seems to vastly prefer for whatever reason.

After covering Russia for 50 years, flying their front-line fighters, springing a wife out of jail in Moscow, I can tell you that everything there is a chess game, and they play a very long game.

Nonfarm Payroll Report comes in at 390,000, better than expected. Leisure & Hospitality led the gains with 84,000, and Professional & Business Services by 75,000. Manufacturing fell to only 18,000, largely because of a shortage of workers. The Headline Unemployment Rate remained the same at 3.6%. Average hourly earnings rose by an inflationary 5.2% YOY. The U6 “discouraged worker” rate rose back to 7.1%.

Weekly Jobless Claims jump 19,000 to 200,000, a two-month high, according to the Department of Labor. Compensation for American workers has hit a 30-year high. New York showed the largest increase followed by Illinois.

OPEC+ raises oil output to meet surging energy demand caused by the Ukraine War. Up 648,000 barrels a month for July and August. They could easily do a lot more. The cartel is aiming for the pre-pandemic 10 million barrels a day. No dent in prices at the pump yet.

Hedge Funds were slaughtered in May, with the flagship Tiger Global Fund down a massive 14%. Gee, Mad Hedge Fund Trader was UP 11% in May and am up 44% on the year. Maybe there’s something in the water here at Lake Tahoe. Or, maybe it’s the “Mad” that is giving me my edge?

S&P Case Shiller National Home Price Index tops 20.6%, a new all-time high. Tampa (34.8%), Miami (32.4%), and Phoenix (32.0%) lead the gains. Incredible as it may seem, price rises are accelerating. But expect that to cool off once current prices start feeding into the index.

Home Listings soar, with homes for sale up 9% YOY as homeowners fear missing getting out at the top. New listings have doubled in a year, according to Redfin. Outrageous over-market bids have definitely ended in California. So far, no hint of price drops….yet.

A Ford (F) Electric Pickup can power your house for ten days, but only if you live in a tiny house. Ford is the first company to introduce bidirectional charging that lets your home run off the vehicle’s 1,300-pound lithium-ion battery. All you need is a $3,895 hardware upgrade from Sunrun. The range is 320 miles, not as much as the latest Tesla Model X (TSLA). Good luck getting one. Ford isn’t taking any new orders until it fills the 200,000 it already has. Expect Tesla to copy the move.

The Fed may overshoot on raising interest rates if Fed governor Christopher Waller has his way. That’s because going too tight may be necessary to break the back of inflation. That’s what happened in 1980, when Fed Funds hit 17%, and ten-year bond yields hit 15.84%. My first home mortgage interest rate for a coop in Manhattan back then was 17%.

China Covid Cases fade, prompting a big Bitcoin rally. This could be the impetus for a sudden global economic recovery that will deliver a big US stock market rally. Good thing I loaded the boat with tech stocks two weeks ago.

The Fed Minutes were not so horrible, downplaying the risk of a full 1% rate rise, triggering a 1,000-point rally in the Dow. With five up days in a row this is starting to look like THE bottom. Is this the light at the end of the tunnel?

NVIDIA (NVDA) rips, surprising to the upside on almost every front, sending the stock up $30, or 18.75%. Mad Hedge followers bought (NVDA) last week. This is one of the best run companies in the world. I expect the shares to rise from the current $178.51 to $1,000 in five years. Buy (NVDA) on dips.

Q1 GDP dives 1.5%, in its final read. It’s the worst quarter since the pandemic began during Q2 2022. Weekly Jobless Claims dropped 8,000 to 210,000.

My Ten-Year View

When we come out the other side of pandemic, we will be perfectly poised to launch into my new American Golden Age, or the next Roaring Twenties. With interest rates still historically cheap, oil peaking out soon, and technology hyperaccelerating, there will be no reason not to. The Dow Average will rise by 800% to 240,000 or more in the coming decade. The American coming out the other side of the pandemic will be far more efficient and profitable than the old. Dow 240,000 here we come!

With some of the greatest market volatility seen since 1987, my June month-to-date performance recovered to +2.49%.

My 2022 year-to-date performance exploded to 44.36%, a new all-time high. The Dow Average is down -9.37% so far in 2022. It is the greatest outperformance on an index since Mad Hedge Fund Trader started 14 years ago. My trailing one-year return maintains a sky high 65.40%.

That brings my 14-year total return to 556.92%, some 2.37 times the S&P 500 (SPX) over the same period and a new all-time high. My average annualized return has ratcheted up to 43.97%, easily the highest in the industry.

We need to keep an eye on the number of US Coronavirus cases at 84.7 million, up 300,000 in a week and deaths topping 1,000,000 and have only increased by 2,000 in the past week. You can find the data here.

On Monday, June 6 is the 78th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy. All of the veterans I knew have long since passed. I’ll miss the memorial this year.

On Tuesday, June 7 at 8:30 AM, the US Balance of Trade for April is released.

On Wednesday, June 8 at 10:30 AM, US Crude Inventories are published.

On Thursday, June 9 at 8:30 AM, Weekly Jobless Claims are out.

On Friday, June 10 at 8:30 AM, the blockbuster US Core Inflation Rate is announced. More importantly, the new dinosaur movie, Jurassic World: Dominion, is released. At 2:00 the Baker Hughes Oil Rig Count are out.

As for me, this is not my first Russian invasion.

Early in the morning of August 20, 1968, I was dead asleep at my budget hotel off of Prague’s Wenceslas Square when I was suddenly awoken by a burst of machine gun fire. I looked out the window and found the square filled with T-54 Russian tanks, trucks, and troops.

The Soviet Union was not happy with the liberal, pro-western leaning of the Alexander Dubcek government so they invaded Czechoslovakia with 500,000 troops and overthrew the government.

I ran downstairs and joined a protest demonstration that was rapidly forming in front of Radio Prague trying to prevent the Russians from seizing the national broadcast radio station. At one point, I was interviewed by a reporter from the BBC carrying this hulking great tape recorder over his shoulder, as I was the only one who spoke English.

It seemed wise to hightail it out of the country, post haste, as it was just a matter of time before I would be arrested. The US ambassador to Czechoslovakia, Shirley Temple Black (yes, THE Shirley Temple), organized a train to get all of the Americans out of the country.

I heard about it too late and missed the train.

All borders with the west were closed and domestic trains shut down, so the only way to get out of the country was to hitch hike to Hungary where the border was still open.

This proved amazingly easy as I placed a small American flag on my backpack. I was in Bratislava just across the Danube from Austria in no time. I figured worst case, I could always swim it, as I had earned both, the Boy Scout Swimming, and Lifesaving merit badges.

Then I was picked up by a guy driving a 1949 Plymouth who loved Americans because he had a brother living in New York City. He insisted on taking me out to dinner. As we dined, he introduced me to an old Czech custom, drinking an entire bottle of vodka before an important event, like crossing an international border.

Being 16 years old, I was not used to this amount of high-octane 40 proof rocket fuel and I was shortly drunk out of my mind. After that, my memory is somewhat hazy.

My driver, also wildly drunk, raced up to the border and screeched to a halt. I staggered through Czech passport control which duly stamped my passport. I then lurched another 50 yards to Hungary, which amazingly let me in. Apparently, there is no restriction on entering the country drunk out of your mind. Such is Eastern Europe.

I walked another 100 yards into Hungary and started to feel woozy. So, I stumbled into a wheat field and passed out.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I felt someone kicking me. Two Hungarian border guards had discovered me. They demanded my documents. I said I had no idea what they were talking about. Finally, after their third demand, they loaded their machine guns, pointed them at my forehead, and demanded my documents for the third time.

I said, “Oh, you want my documents!”

I produced my passport, When they got to the page that showed my age they both started laughing.

They picked me and my backpack up and dragged me back to the road. While crossing some railroad tracks, they dropped me, and my knee hit a rail. But since I was numb, I didn’t feel a thing.

When we got to the road, I saw an endless stream of Russian army trucks pouring into Czechoslovakia. They flagged down one of them. I was grabbed by two Russian soldiers and hauled into the truck with my pack thrown on top of me. The truck made a U-turn and drove back into Hungary.

I contemplated my surroundings. There were 16 Russian Army soldiers in full battle dress holding AK-47s between their legs and two German Shepherds all looking at me quizzically. Then I suddenly felt the urge to throw up. As I assessed that this was a life and death situation, I made every effort to restrain myself.

We drove five miles into the country and then stopped at a small church. They carried me out of the truck and dumped me and my pack behind the building. Then they drove off. 

The next morning, I woke up with the worst headache of my life. My knee bled throughout the night and hurt like hell. I still have the scar. Even so, in my enfeebled condition, I realized that I had just had one close call.

I hitch-hiked on to Budapest, then to Romania, where I heard that the beaches were filled with beautiful women. My Italian let me get by passably in the local language.

It all turned out to be true.

Stay Healthy,

John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader

 

One More Off to College

 

If You Don’t Like the Price, Don’t Use it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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