It’s that time of year again, when finance ministers, central bank governors, hedge fund managers, and assorted rock stars hold their annual confab high in the Alps at Davos, Switzerland.
When I was a director of one of the largest banks in Switzerland, I found myself a frequent visitor to Davos. The conference is one of those things that you only want to do once. More than that is too boring.
In years gone by, we provided the loans to the Canton of Graubünden needed to build the lifts and gondolas in Davos to develop it into a world-class ski resort and watering hole for the wealthy.
Without that money, Davos would have remained a small mountain hamlet on the way to long-established St. Moritz, possibly not even warranting its own train station.
Instead of renting out hotel suites for $10,000 a day, the residents would be filling their days cutting hay, milking cows, and making goat cheese. Generous government subsidies would keep the village in the green.
Thanks to our largess, I received a lifetime ski lift ticket there which I still use on occasion.
My friend, the intrepid New York Times reporter, Andrew Ross Sorkin, tells me that the minimum cost to attend the exclusive World Economic Forum for membership and a single ticket is $71,000, and that’s for the cheap tickets.
That just gets you general admission. If you hail from an up-and-coming emerging market, like China, you get a break on the price.
To join some of the private discussion groups, you need to upgrade to a $156,000 package. More exclusive access can be had for “Strategic Partners” for prices ranging up to $696,000 after the latest price increase and Swiss franc revaluation.
That does not include the cost of travel, meals, and accommodation, which are stratospheric, now that the Swiss franc is more valuable than the US dollar (I remember when it was 3:1). $75 for a hamburger? No problem!
All of this just to rub shoulders with hedge fund manager Ray Dalio, European Central Bank governor Christine Lagarde, rock star Bono, and others of their ilk.
Certainly, you can gain many of the insights found in Davos by simply reading the Mad Hedge Fund Trader, at a much lower price. I can get more information from the high and the mighty by chatting over the phone for five minutes rather than engaging in a media scrum in the mountains.
Do you suppose they still have a Youth Hostel in Davos? I think I left my sunglasses there….55 years ago!
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/davos.jpg240320april@madhedgefundtrader.comhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngapril@madhedgefundtrader.com2024-01-19 09:02:102024-01-19 10:25:49A Cheaper Way to do Davos
“If you have the word “broker” in your job title the Internet is going to disintermediate you,” said Scott McNealy, founder of Sun Microsystems.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/middleman.png206474Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2024-01-19 09:00:212024-01-19 10:04:51January 19, 2024 - Quote of the Day
Nothing like starting the new year by going back to basics and reviewing the rules that worked so well for us in 2023. Call this the refresher course for Trading 101.
I usually try to catch three or four trend changes a year, which might generate 100-200 trades and often come in frenzied bursts. In 2023, there were exactly two great entry points for stocks, the breakout of the regional banking crisis on March 15 and the peak fears of “higher for longer” on October 16.
Since I am one of the greatest tightwads that ever walked the planet, I only like to buy positions when we are at the height of despair and despondency, and traders are raining off the Golden Gate Bridge.
Similarly, I only like to sell when the markets are tripping on steroids and ecstasy and traders are convinced that they can live forever.
Some 99% of the time, the markets are in the middle, and there is nothing to do but do deep research and build shopping lists for the next trade. That is the purpose of this letter.
Over the five decades that I have been trading, I have learned a number of tried and true rules which have saved my bacon countless times. I will share them with you today.
1) Don’t over trade. This is the number one reason why individual investors lose money. Look at your trades of the past year and apply the 90/10 rule. Dump the least profitable 90% and watch your performance skyrocket. Then aim for that 10%. Over-trading is a great early retirement plan for your broker, not you.
2) Always use stops. Risk control is the measure of a good hedge fund trader. If you lose all your capital on the lemons, you can’t play when the great trades are set up. Consider cash as having an option value.
3) Don’t forget to sell. Date, don’t marry your positions. Remember, hogs get fed and pigs get slaughtered. My late mentor, Barton Biggs, told me to always leave the last 10% of a move for the next guy.
4) You don’t have to be a genius to play this game. If that was required, Wall Street would have run out of players a long time ago.
If you employ risk control and stop, then you can be wrong 40% of the time, and still make a living. That’s a little better than a coin toss. If you are wrong only 30% of the time, you can make millions.
If you are wrong a scant 20% of the time, you are heading a trading desk at Goldman Sachs. If you are wrong a scant 10% of the time, you are running a $20 billion hedge fund that the public only hears about when you pay $100 million for a pickled shark at a modern art auction.
If someone says they are never wrong, as is often claimed on the Internet, run a mile, because it is impossible. By the way, I was wrong 15% of the time in 2013. That’s what you’re paying for.
5) This is hard work. Trading attracts a lot of wide-eyed, naïve, but lazy people because it appears so easy from the outside. You buy a stock, watch it go up, and make money. How hard is that?
The reality is that successful investing requires twice as much work as a normal job. The more research you put into a trade, the more comfortable you will become, and the more profitable it will be. That’s what this letter is for.
6) Don’t chase the market. If you do, it will turn back and bite you. Wait for it to come to you. If you miss the train, there will be another one along in minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months. Patience is a virtue.
7) Limit Your Losses. When I put on a position, I calculate how much I am willing to lose to keep it. I then put a stop just below there. If I get triggered, I just walk away. Emotion never enters the equation.
Only enter a trade when the risk/ reward is in your favor. You can start at 3:1. That means only risk a dollar to potentially make three.
8) Don’t confuse a bull market with brilliance. I am not smart, just old as dirt.
9) Tape this quote from the great economist and early hedge fund trader of the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes, to your computer monitor: "Markets can remain illogical longer than you can remain solvent." Hang around long enough, and you will see this proven time and again (ten-year Treasuries at 1.38%?!).
10) Don’t believe the media. I know, I used to be one of them. Look for the hard data, the numbers, and you’ll see that often the talking heads, the paid industry apologists, and politicians don’t know what they are talking about (the Gulf oil spill will create a dead zone for decades?).
Average out all the public commentary, and half are bullish and half bearish at any given time. The problem is that they never tell you which one is right (that is my job). When they all go one way, the markets usually go in the opposite direction.
11) When you are running a long/short portfolio, 80% of your time is spent managing the shorts. If you don’t want to do the work, then cash beats a short any day of the week.
12) Sometimes the conventional wisdom is right.
13) Invest like a fundamentalist, and execute like a technical analyst. This is what all the pros do.
14) Use technical analysis only, and you will buy every rally, sell every dip, and end up broke. That said, learn what an “outside reversal” is, and who the hell is that Italian guy, Leonardo Fibonacci.
15) The simpler a market approach, the better it works. Everyone talks about “buy low and sell high”, but few do it. All black boxes eventually blow up, if they were ever there in the first place.
16) Markets are made up of people. Understand and anticipate how they think, and you will know what the markets are going to do.
17) Understand what information is in the market and what isn’t and you will make more money.
18) Do the hard trade, the one that everyone tells you that you are “Mad” to do. If you add a position and then throw up on your shoes afterward, then you know you’ve done the right thing. This is why people started calling me “Mad” 40 years ago. (What? Tech stocks were a huge buy the first week of January?).
19) If you are trying to get out of a hole, the first thing to do is quit digging and throw away the shovel. Sell everything. A blank position sheet can be invigorating and illuminating.
20) Making money in the market is an unnatural act, and fights against the tide of evolution.
We humans are predators and hunters evolved to track game on the horizon of an African savanna. Modern humans are maybe 5 million years old, but civilization has been around for only 10,000 years.
Our brains have not had time to make the adjustment. In the market, this means that if a stock has gone up, you believe it will continue to do so.
This is why market tops and bottoms see volume spikes. To make money, you have to go against these innate instincts.
Some people are born with this ability, while others can only learn it through decades of training. I am in the latter group.
Great Hunter, Lousy Trader
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/golden-gate-bridge.png394440april@madhedgefundtrader.comhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngapril@madhedgefundtrader.com2024-01-18 09:02:022024-01-18 09:52:11My 20 Rules for Trading in 2024
Not a day goes by without me hearing from a reader about the competition.
They previously subscribed to a newsletter that promised a top-drawer education, insider’s insights, and spectacular returns, sometimes 100% or more a month.
“Doubled in a day” is a frequently heard term.
The entry-level costs are only a few bucks, but they are ever teased onward by the “trade of the century”, a certain 100X winner that they will reveal to you only after another upgrade to their service.
Customers eventually spend outrageous amounts of money, $5,000, $10,000, or even $100,000 a year for the service.
They then lose their shirts.
I hear from readers who have gone through as many as ten of these scams before they find me. Some have lost millions of dollars. Others have been wiped out.
The sob stories are legion.
Then, they find the Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader.
This is the source of all those effusive testimonials you find on my website (click here). Believe me, they come in every day. I don’t make this stuff up.
Here is the problem. I work in an industry where 99% of the participants are frauds. They are giant Internet marketing firms with hundreds or thousands of employees.
They spend millions to buy your email address. They then spend millions more on copywriters and programmers to pen and distribute top-rate invitations to you to get rich.
Some of these pitches are so compelling, that even I take a look from time to time. These guys are slick, really slick.
None of these people have ever worked on Wall Street. They have never been employed as traders. They have not even traded for their account.
They would know which end of stock to hold upward if you handed one to them.
For the most part, they are twenty-something kids who got an “A” in creative writing, if they ever went to school. Many haven’t.
So by putting your faith and your wealth in these newsletters and “trade-mentoring” services, you are placing them in the hands of kids without any experience whatsoever.
Hence, the disastrous results. You’d have a better outcome tossing a coin or throwing darts at a dartboard.
Some of the larger service hires washed out have been investment professionals who become the “face” of the company and lend it some bogus credibility.
They know the lingo, can quote you statistics all day long, and may even boast of proprietary models and hidden indicators. But chances are they have never made a trading dollar in their life.
Without exception, they are lightweights, has-beens, and wannabees who failed in the big show. None have ever traded for a living. If they did, they would be broke.
Better to sell the shovels to the gold miners than to try it themselves.
They include the oil newsletter that never saw the crash coming, the fixed income service that is always predicting the return of hyperinflation and a crash, and the perennial prediction that the Dow Average is about to plunge to 3,000.
And because these guys are lousy at their jobs, they always tell you to do THE EXACT OPPOSITE of the right thing to do at market extremes.
Just saw a flash crash? Sell everything! The next crash is here! Just hit a new all-time high? Load the boat! The market is about to double! For them, markets are always about to zero, or to infinity.
Here’s another problem. Negativity outsells a positive outlook hugely, sometimes by 10:1. It makes people look smarter. That’s the source of all of these Armageddon scenarios. They make a ton of money for their purveyors.
It’s not about being right, or dispensing sage advice and proper guidance. It’s only about making a dollar, nothing else. There is no guilt or responsibility involved whatsoever.
All of this is done at your expense. I get emails from victims who sold their houses at the market bottom and want to know what to do now that the house has doubled in value and rents are rising.
There are a lot of people out there who drank the Master Limited Partnership Kool-Aid and put all of their assets there to get double-digit yields. If they are lucky, they are down only 90%.
The precious metal area is a favorite of Internet marketers. Readers who bought this sector on margin, as they were urged to do with great urgency, lost everything.
I know this all sounds like sour grapes coming from me. The sad reality is that out of hundreds of competing investment and trading newsletters in the industry, I can count on one hand those run by true professionals, and I know most of them.
The rest are all crooks.
Yes, I know who these people are. But I am not going to name any names. No time to sling mud here. I can hear the collective sighs of relief already.
This is why I strive to provide the opposite of the con men. To me, it is more important to be right than to be rich. I will give you my unvarnished, undiluted views, even if it is bad for my business, which it often is.
This is why we publish our model trading performance on a daily basis, warts and all.
Notice that no other newsletter does this. If they did, they would only show huge losses, which don’t sell well. It’s all about making tons of incredible claims without a shred of documentation.
So please continue trolling the web for new investment insights and trading opportunities. After all, that’s how you found me all those years ago. But I will give you a piece of advice:
Caveat emptor!
Buyer beware!
I Think I'll Recommend This One
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Dartboard2-e1454014789841.jpg267400MHFTRhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMHFTR2024-01-17 09:02:332024-01-17 10:15:35Why Your Other Investment Newsletter is So Dangerous
(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or WHAT WILL KILL THIS MARKET)
(MSFT), (BA), (AMZN), (DAL), (V), (PANW), (CCJ), (TLT), (NVDA), (META), (TSLA), (GOOGL)
What if Goldilocks decided to hang around for a while? I’ve always been in favor of a long-term relationship.
It could be weeks. It could be months.
Certainly, the widely predicted New Year selloff has failed to materialize.
Failure to fall after the first week of 2024 has delivered a rally almost as ferocious as the one that launched in October. (NVDIA) up 15% in a week? Good thing I have a double position. Cameco (CCJ) up 25%? The market action was so positive that it rushed me into a rare 100% fully invested portfolio.
Which all begs the question of what WILL eventually kill this market. After all, nothing goes up forever.
It's very simple.
If the coming Fed interest rate cuts become so certain that companies start aggressively investing for the recovery NOW, there could be a problem. The headline Unemployment Rate never falls, inflation reaccelerates, and even the idea of interest rate cuts gets pushed off until 2025. That would thrust a dagger through the heart of the current rally post haste, which has been interest rate-driven from day one.
If there’s anyone who will save our bacon from this dire scenario, it is the legion of dour analysts out there who are perpetually behind the curve with their ultra-conservative earnings forecasts. That is scaring companies from expanding too quickly and is why every announcement delivers an upside surprise. That alone could provide enough of a drag on the economy to keep the Goldilocks scenario on track.
Watch Out Above!
If that is the case, then the ten positions I added last week to achieve a rare 100% invested portfolio should do pretty well, which has a strong technology bent. In the AI-dominated world, data is king. Let’s see who owns the data.
Microsoft (MSFT) – knows every keystroke you have executed since you bought your first PC in 1990.
Google (GOOGL) – knows every search you have performed since 2005 plus every YouTube video you have watched, even the X-rated ones (oops!).
Tesla (TSLA) – knows every function your car has performed since 2010 and has 12 videos of where you have been (double oops!).
Meta (META)– knows every keystroke you have performed on your social media accounts.
If all of this sounds scary, it should be. But it also means that while these stocks may be expensive relative to 2023 earnings, they are still in the bargain basement regarding 2024 and 2025 earnings. Buy everything on dips. Investors are adding to what they already own because it’s been working big time, including me.
On a completely different topic, Uranium is going nuclear again. Yellow cake, the fuel used by nuclear power plants, has seen prices up 45% since May. Before the Ukraine war, Russia produced 50% of the world’s nuclear fuel. Now it is banned due to sanctions. The US has announced the creation of a nuclear fuel stockpile.
Congress is about to vote on a ban on Russian fuel. France just announced the addition of 14 large nuclear plants. Oh, and it’s green.
Uranium prices endured a long nuclear winter starting with the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, followed by Chernobyl in 1986, and Fukushima in 2011. That time is now over, thanks to more advanced reactor designs and better risk control.
I used to collect Czech uranium glass, which emits a very low level of gamma radiation and glows in the dark under ultraviolet light. Time to collect some of Canadian uranium miner Cameco (CCJ) also … again.
So far in January, we are up +6.19% with a 100% invested position. My 2024 year-to-date performance is also at +6.19%.The S&P 500 (SPY) is down -0.07%so far in 2024. My trailing one-year return reached +67.65% versus +37.82%for the S&P 500.
That brings my 15-year total return to +682.82%. My average annualized return has exploded to +52.19%,another new high.
Some 63 of my 70 trades last year were profitable in 2023.
I am going into 2024 with longs in (MSFT), (BA), (AMZN), (DAL), (V), (PANW), (CCJ), (TLT), and a double long in (NVDA).
FAA Grounds the Boeing 737 Max….Again, after a huge chunk of the fuselage fell off on a passenger flight which made an emergency landing in Portland. Dozens of the troubled aircraft were grounded. The move affects about 171 planes worldwide. The 737 Max is by far Boeing’s most popular aircraft and its biggest source of revenue. United Airlines is the biggest operator of the type followed by Alaska. Use any major dips to buy (BA) stock, which is facing a golden age.
NVIDIA Ramps Up its Graphics Cards. Nvidia is playing up its strength in consumer GPUs for so-called “local” AI that can run on a PC or laptop from home or an office. The new chip can be used to generate images on Adobe Photoshop’s Firefly generator to remove backgrounds in video calls, or even make games that use AI to generate dialogue. Buy (NVDA) on dips, as I did this last week.
Energy Prices Collapse Again, with Texas tea diving 4% to $70 on Saudi price cuts. This is despite steady buying from the US government for the SPR. The kingdom is moving to shortcut cheating by lesser OPEC members, as it usually does. If you throw good news in the market and it fails to go up, you sell it. Avoid (USO), (XOM), and (OXY).
Natural Gas Goes Ballistic, up 50% in three weeks. The 2026 $8-9 LEAPS I recommended over Christmas have already doubled. Expansion of export facilities to China is the reason, for accommodating more demand. BUY (UNG) on dips.
Mortgage Demand Soars by 10% in the first week of the year, and the next leg in the bull market for residential housing begins anew. Applications to refinance a home loan jumped 19% from the previous week and were 30% higher than the same week one year ago.
Consumer Price Index Flies, coming in at 0.3% for December instead of the anticipated 0.2%, a 3.4% annual rate. Fed rate cuts just got pushed back from March to June, where they belong. Used car and apparel prices get the blame. Car insurance was up a shocking 20% YOY. Go figure.
Bitcoin ETF’s SEC Approved, after a ten-year wait, potentially marking a market top. The SEC is still warning about market risks, even if the ETF sellers don’t. During the last crypto spike, there was an absence of cheap quality growth stocks. Now there is an abundance. Bitcoin prospered when we had a cash surplus and asset shortage. Now we have the opposite.
Global EV and Hybrid Sales Jump by 31% in 2023, compared to only 10% for internal combustion driven cars. Global sales of fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) rose 31% in 2023, down from 60% growth in 2022, according to market research firm Rho Motion. For 2024, there are forecasts of global EV sales growth of between 25% and 30%. That’s really quite amazing given the weak 2023 global economy.
Microsoft Tops Apple, as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company, with a $3 trillion market cap. A huge lead in AI and a growing storage presence with Azure are the reasons. I’m long (MSFT) lower down.
US Budget Deficit Tops $500 Billion in Q1, starting October 1, 2023. But the frenetic price action, up a mind-blowing $19 in 2 ½ months proves the government isn’t borrowing too much money, it isn’t borrowing enough! There is a severe bond shortage in the marketplace. Never argue with Mr. Market as he is always right. Buy the (TLT) on dips, as I have.
Tesla to Halt Production in Germany, thanks to soaring shipping costs in the Red Sea. Tesla has been selling Berlin-made Model Ys to China via the Suez Canal. Shipping costs have doubled to $5,000 per container since October.
My Ten-Year View
When we come out the other side of the recession, we will be perfectly poised to launch into my new American Golden Age or the next Roaring Twenties. The economy decarbonizing and technology hyper-accelerating, creating enormous investment opportunities. The Dow Average will rise by 800% to 240,000 or more in the coming decade. The new America will be far more efficient and profitable than the old.
Dow 240,000 here we come!
On Monday, January 15, markets are closed for Martin Luther King Day.
On Tuesday, January 16 at 8:30 AM EST,the New York Empire State Manufacturing Index will be released.
On Wednesday, January 17 at 2:00 PM, the Retail Sales are published.
On Thursday, January 18 at 8:30 AM, the Weekly Jobless Claims are announced. We also get the Building Permits for December.
On Friday, January 19 at 2:30 PM, the December University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment is published. At 2:00 PM, the Baker Hughes Rig Count is printed.
Uranium Glass
As for me, when you make millions of dollars for your clients, you get a lot of pretty interesting invitations. $5,000 cases of wine, lunches on superyachts, free tickets to the Olympics, and dates with movie stars (Hi, Cybil!).
So it was in that spirit that I made my way down to the beachside community of Oxnard, California just north of famed Malibu to meet long-term Mad Hedge follower, Richard Zeiler.
Richard is a man after my own heart, plowing his investment profits into vintage aircraft, specifically a 1929 Travel Air D-4-D.
At the height of the Roaring Twenties (which by the way we are now repeating), flappers danced the night away doing the Charleston and the bathtub gin flowed like water. Anything was possible, and the stock market soared.
In 1925, Clyde Cessna, Lloyd Stearman, and Walter Beech got together and founded the Travel Air Manufacturing Company in Wichita, Kansas. Their first order was to build ten biplanes to carry the US mail for $125,000.
The plane proved hugely successful, and Travel Air eventually manufactured 1,800 planes, making it the first large-scale general aviation plane built in the US. Then, in 1929, the stock market crashed, the Great Depression ensued, aircraft orders collapsed, and Travel Air disappeared in the waves of mergers and bankruptcies that followed.
A decade later, WWII broke out and Wichita produced the tens of thousands of the small planes used to train the pilots who won the war. They flew B-17 and B-25 bombers and P51 Mustangs, all of which I’ve flown myself. The name Travel Air was consigned to the history books.
Enter my friend Richard Zeiler. Richard started flying support missions during the Vietnam War and retired 20 years later as an Army Lieutenant Colonel. A successful investor, he was able to pursue his first love, restoring vintage aircraft.
Starting with a broken down 1929 Travel Air D4D wreck, he spent years begging, borrowing, and trading parts he found on the Internet and at air shows. Eventually, he bought 20 Travel Air airframes just to make one whole airplane, including the one used in the 1930 Academy Award-winning WWI movie “Hells Angels.”
By 2018, he returned it to pristine flying condition. The modernized plane has a 300 hp engine, carries 62 gallons of fuel, and can fly 550 miles in five hours, which is far longer than my own bladder range.
Richard then spent years attending air shows, producing movies, and even scattering the ashes of loved ones over the Pacific Ocean. He also made the 50-hour round trip to the annual air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. I have volunteered to copilot on a future trip.
Richard now claims over 5,000 hours flying tailwheel aircraft, probably more than anyone else in the world. Believe it or not, I am also one of the few living tailwheel-qualified pilots in the country left. Yes, antiques are flying antiques!
As for me, my flying career also goes back to the Vietnam era as well. As a war correspondent in Laos and Cambodia, I used to hold Swiss-made Pilatus Porter airplanes straight and level while my Air America pilot friend was looking for drop zones on the map, dodging bullets all the way.
I later obtained a proper British commercial pilot license over the bucolic English countryside, trained by a retired Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot. His favorite trick was to turn off the fuel and tell me that a German Messerschmidt had just shot out my engine and that I had to land immediately. He only turned the gas back on at 200 feet when my approach looked good. We did this more than 200 times.
By the time I moved back to the States and converted to a US commercial license, the FAA examiner was amazed at how well I could do emergency landings. Later, I added on additional licenses for instrument flying, night flying, and aerobatics.
Thanks to the largesse of Morgan Stanley during the 1980s, I had my own private twin-engine Cessna 421 in Europe for ten years at their expense where I clocked another 2,000 hours of flying time. That job had me landing on private golf courses so I could sell stocks to the Arab Prince owners. By 1990, I knew every landing strip in Europe and the Persian Gulf like the back of my hand.
So, when the first Gulf War broke out the following year, the US Marine Corps came calling at my London home. They asked if I wanted to serve my country and I answered, “Hell, yes!” So, they drafted me as a combat pilot to fly support missions in Saudi Arabia.
I only got shot down once and escaped with a crushed L5 disk. It turns out that I crash better than anyone else I know. That’s important because they don’t let you practice crashing in flight school. It’s too expensive.
My last few flying years have been more sedentary, flying as a volunteer spotter pilot in a Cessna-172 for Cal Fire during the state’s runaway wildfires. As long as you stay upwind, there’s no smoke. The problem is that these days, there is almost nowhere in California that isn’t smokey. By the way, there are 2,000 other pilots on the volunteer list.
Eventually, I flew over 50 prewar and vintage aircraft, everything from a 1932 De Havilland Tiger Moth to a Russian MiG 29 fighter.
It was a clear, balmy day when I was escorted to the Travel Air’s hanger at Oxnard Airport. I carefully prechecked the aircraft and rotated the prop to circulate oil through the engine before firing it up. That reduced the wear and tear on the moving parts.
As they teach you in flight school, better to be on the ground wishing you could fly than be in the air wishing you were on the ground!
I donned my leather flying helmet, plugged in my headphones, received a clearance from the tower, and was good to go. I put on max power and was airborne in less than 100 yards. How do you tell if a pilot is happy? He has engine oil all over his teeth. After all, these are open-cockpit planes.
I made for the Malibu coast and thought it would be fun to buzz the local surfers at wave top level. I got a lot of cheers in return from my fellow thrill seekers.
After a half hour of low flying over elegant sailboats and looking for whales, I flew over the cornfields and flower farms of remote Ventura County and returned to Oxnard. I haven’t flown in a biplane in a while and that second wing really put up some drag. So, I had to give a burst of power on short finals to make the numbers. A taxi back to the hangar and my work there was done.
There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots. I can attest to that.
Richard’s goal is to establish a new Southern California aviation museum at Oxnard airport. He created a non-profit 501 (3)(c), the Travel Air Aircraft Company, Inc. to achieve that goal, which has a very responsible and well-known board of directors. He has already assembled three other 1929 and 1930 Travel Air biplanes as part of the display.
The museum’s goal is to provide education, job training, restoration, maintenance, sightseeing rides, film production, and special events. All donations are tax-deductible. To make a donation, please email the president of the museum, my friend Richard Conrad at rconrad6110@gmail.com
Who knows, you might even get a ride in a nearly 100-year-old aircraft as part of a donation.
To watch the video of my joyride, please click here.
Where I Go My Kids Go
Good Luck and Good Trading,
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Joh-Thomas-pilot.png8121080april@madhedgefundtrader.comhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngapril@madhedgefundtrader.com2024-01-16 09:02:062024-01-16 11:43:18The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or What Will Kill this Market
“At last the lake burst upon us—a noble sheet of blue water walled in by a rim of snow clad mountain peaks….as it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed on its surface I thought it surely be the fairest picture the whole earth affords,” said the American writer, Mark Twain, on his first sight of Lake Tahoe in 1861, pictured below.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Lake-Tahoe-e1424375749216.jpg220400DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2024-01-16 09:00:362024-01-16 11:43:03January 16, 2024 - Quote of the Day
Come join me for lunch at the Mad Hedge Fund Trader’s Global Strategy Luncheon, which I will be conducting in St. Augustine, Florida on Wednesday, January 22, 2025. The cost of the luncheon will be $257.
An excellent meal will be followed by a wide-ranging discussion and an extended question and answer period.
I’ll be arriving early 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 historic St. Augustine hotel. The precise location 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/2021/04/florida-post-card.png424600april@madhedgefundtrader.comhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngapril@madhedgefundtrader.com2024-01-14 09:04:102025-01-14 10:06:52Wednesday, January 22, 2025 St. Augustine, Florida Global Strategy Luncheon
Legal Disclaimer
There is a very high degree of risk involved in trading. Past results are not indicative of future returns. MadHedgeFundTrader.com and all individuals affiliated with this site assume no responsibilities for your trading and investment results. The indicators, strategies, columns, articles and all other features are for educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. Information for futures trading observations are obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but we do not warrant its completeness or accuracy, or warrant any results from the use of the information. Your use of the trading observations is entirely at your own risk and it is your sole responsibility to evaluate the accuracy, completeness and usefulness of the information. You must assess the risk of any trade with your broker and make your own independent decisions regarding any securities mentioned herein. Affiliates of MadHedgeFundTrader.com may have a position or effect transactions in the securities described herein (or options thereon) and/or otherwise employ trading strategies that may be consistent or inconsistent with the provided strategies.
