So You Want to Invest....

Today was a typical day for me…

1. I woke up and lost money owning Apple.

2. I got 500 emails asking me if they should buy Apple.

3. I read two thousand $AAPL posts on Stocktwits.

4. I went on CNBC and waved my hands a lot and said insane things that will be taken out of context forever (shame on me).

But things got better. First, the market closed. Than (then?) I took Max to hear me speak to a class of business students at San Diego State (it was cloudy and chilly so students actually attended). I killed :) …natch.

It was liberating to be in front of mostly early 20 somethings and quote Rodney Dangerfield from ‘Back to School’.

None had an etrade account or thought the markets were rigged or broken. In fact, few had a clue about the bond or stock markets. They were too busy being young, worried about getting a job and studying concepts they would not need.

It was fascinating that less than 5 percent of the business students had a Twitter account, had heard of Kickstarter, Angellist, Square, read VC blogs like Fred or Brad, or marketing concepts from Seth Godin, none had bought a stock on their own….

I was there to talk about valuations and Discounted Cash Flow (DCF for you finance geeks), but threw that out the window completely to rant for an hour about twenty years of losses, pain and misses. I gave them my shortcuts to finding winners. I showed them pictures and patterns, I talked about cutting losses. I told them P/E ratios were the work of the devil…static nonsense. I talked about price and sentiment.

I told them about angles of attack and winning from anywhere.

Most importantly though, I learned.

I should be a better investor tomorrow.