Brad Koteshwar - The Perfect Speculator

T HE P ERFECT S PECULATOR

HOW TO WIN BIG IN UP MARKETS AND LOSE
NOTHING IN DOWN MARKETS

T HE P ERFECT S PECULATOR

HOW TO WIN BIG IN UP MARKETS AND LOSE
NOTHING IN DOWN MARKETS

B RAD K OTESHWAR

The Perfect Speculator

Great Expressions Publishing

34522 North Scottsdale Road #254

Scotttsdale, AZ 85262

All the characters in this book are fictional. Any resemblance of the, characters to any one living or dead is by accident and purely coincidental. The events in the book may or may not have occurred and may or may not be fictional. If the events have occurred in the past, they might or might not have been used as an example to offer the markets lessons. If the events have not occurred yet, they may or may not occur in the future.

All rights reserved

Copyright 2005 by Brad Koteshwar

Publishing date: October 11, 2005

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the author or publisher.

Book Design and Layout by

www.integrativeink.com

ISBN 9780976932444

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Digital Editions (epub and mobi formats) produced by Booknook.biz

To my daughter,
who like the markets,
has taught me much

The speculator observes, interprets and then
executes based on best-odds of making profits

I was at the corner barber shop getting a hair-cut. I liked old-fashioned barber shops. Nowadays, glorified barber shops were sprouting all over. With names that were hard to pronounce and the word Salon next to them, the modern-day barbers calling themselves hairstylists, were taking free license to charge three times what a standard barber-shop hair-cut should cost. My best guess was that my barber, Ed, was in his late seventies. As he was cutting my hair, he was talking about his younger days when he ran a barber shop just outside of Chicago. I asked him, When did you move to Arizona? He said he had retired about ten years ago and had moved to Arizona right after he had sold his barber shop in Chicago. Then the obvious question popped in to my mind which I blurted out quite tactlessly, Why are you still working if you had retired ten years ago? He said with a tinge of sadness and with some anger in his voice, I should have listened to folks like you. But I had my money in mutual funds and the bear market wiped me out. Here I am in my golden years at the worst financial condition I have ever been.

As I was driving home after my hair-cut, I made a mental note to myself that the media never talks about the thousands and thousands of stories that are similar to or worse than Eds. The hype in the market place is always about the large promise of quick riches that the stock market offers.

It was a beautiful spring morning in early April in Scottsdale. I was basking in my fifteen minutes of fame as Time magazine had just mentioned me and my wife in one of their business columns. Time magazine had covered the phenomenal price run-up and the subsequent price collapse of Taser Internationals stock. In that article they had mentioned a little something about me.

I had written a book in 2004 titled, The Perfect Stock, which was based on Tasers great price run. My phone was ringing off the hook as family, friends and even my neighbors were calling me saying that I was the only one they ever knew personally who had made it into Time magazine. I had to remind most folks that a new issue of Time was already on the stands and last weeks Time magazine was now ancient history. Human memory being short, Taser was a forgotten story. No doubt that future market cycles would bring along with them many more new stocks that would write similar stories like that of Taser.

Among the many calls I got were a few from the big New York book publishing houses. Now that my name had made it into Time magazine, apparently they had picked up my earlier book, which I had self-published back in September of 2004. These big boys did not mince words. They came straight to the point. How many copies of your first book have you sold? How has the Time magazine article jump-started the sales? Do you have any other books that you are working on right now? Have you been approached by any other publisher? Can you send us a rough manuscript of your second book, if you have one? The questions all seemed to be the same.

I did not know how they figured out that I was working on my second book. But I was flattered by all the attention I was getting. I was more than happy to send them all a draft copy of my manuscript I had developed by then.

A week or so later I got a call from one of the publishers. This fellow was blunt and to the point. He said, Brad, your manuscript is great but I am sorry I cannot sell it. You cover the classic principles in a very simple and conversational style. I think the readers will enjoy it and learn from it. However, I cannot see anything in the book that promises easy riches and there is nothing in the book that I can use as a new-get-rich-quick method to create a marketing buzz around. I do not see a new and easy way to beat the market in the book.

I interrupted him and said, David, I hate to say it but there is no quick-and-easy get-rich quick method in the market. If one existed, it would have been devised by now. Speculation has been around for thousands of years. Nothing has changed. I have put down the lessons in a very simple and easy reading format. I would have loved to have had a book like this when I was a youngster. I would have avoided huge mistakes I have made along the way.

David was abrupt. He replied, I cannot hype your new manuscript and nor can I sell it. When I push a book on the market, it is usually a new way to get rich quickly in the market. The public is always looking for short-cuts and loves to pay big bucks for a fancy new way to beat the market. If I hype it and market it, I can sell thousands of copies on Day One. Do you know Jill Incognito? When she writes a book, no matter how bad, she sells 20,000 books on Day One. I can hype it, sell it, push it, market it. Her books always offer a way to get rich quick and the public buys her message without blinking.

It is an inside joke in the publishing world - we only publish books that usually do not need any help in selling. If you change your mind and come up with a book that touts a new cutting-edge way to beat the market, let me know and I will hype it, buzz it, push it and make it a best-seller. The public is funny that way as they will pay to read a pie-in-the-sky promise any day but will never pay to learn the true lessons of the market.

The true market lessons and the realities of the markets are too hard to implement because the public wants easy money. Easy money does not exist. The only easy money is in selling promises of easy money. Just ask Jill. Do you know who I am talking about? I knew Jill. She was a perennial bull. She only knew two kinds of markets - a bull market and a super-bull market. She was always claiming to be right. The public, however, did not mind that Jill was always pointing out wins only in hindsight. It only mattered to the public that Jill was an optimist and according to Jill a great big bull market was always just around the corner.

I commented that this Jill, David was talking about, had a great gig going. She would publish in her newspaper all the stocks that had already made a serious move over the most recent few months. She would then add a comment which would say, If you had bought this stock six months ago, you could have tripled your money. To find stocks like this, you should subscribe to my charting service and my screening programs. Obviously, the charts and the screens would cost a pretty penny. When any of her readers would raise a valid and a smart question, Why is that your paper does not offer the stocks as potential buys before the move starts but you always indicate after-the-fact which stocks have made a move? - her reply would be a classic salesmans disarming answer, We are a newspaper and not an investment advisor. We offer tools for the investor to make great returns.