Attention. Deficit. Disorder. - Brad Listi

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stock was seventy-two hours. Some days I’d ride three or four stocks in a single session. My typical routine had me buying at open and cashing out sometime after midday. My goal was always a 2 percent return. If I made 5 percent, I automatically cashed out, no matter what time it was. That was the discipline. At the end of my run, I calculated the capital gains tax, set it aside in my money market account per Horvak’s strict instructions, and threw the rest back into the market the following morning. It was easy.

      Naturally, my good fortune astonished me; it rattled me to the point of superstition. I didn’t talk about it very much, convinced that the market would crash if I said something. Horvak was my only real confidant. I remember telling him one day that I’d never felt luckier in my whole life. I told him that, for the first time ever, I found myself wondering if someone or something was actually watching over me.

      “Maybe it’s my granddad,” I said, half kidding. “Maybe he’s supervising my investment portfolio from the next realm.”

      Horvak told me that he liked day-trading better than weed.

       15

      A week or so after Amanda’s funeral, the year 2000 arrived. Y2K. For months, the world had been hearing about imminent danger, that Y2K was a disaster waiting to happen, that critical mainframe computer systems were sure to crash on New Year’s Day, that the global economy was in grave and utter peril. Kingpins in the federal government were urging calmness, advising citizens to exercise caution and restraint. In the weeks leading up to the big day, the more gullible elements of society had busied themselves by stocking up on food and water, batteries and duct tape, in preparation for the chaos.

      But in the end, of course, nothing much happened. Not a goddamn thing. It was total bullshit, start to finish. A dark and mysterious lie. And it was no big surprise.

      The millennial celebrations of New Year’s Eve were completely misleading as well. A marketing scam, if you ask me. There was money to be made. People were buying. Everyone was in on the act, celebrating the big moment as if it were the real thing, lighting off firecrackers, waving their hands in the air, pretending to be awed. In truth, however, the twenty-first century wouldn’t actually begin until 2001. New Year’s Day 2001 would technically qualify as the first day of the third millennium, because a millennium doesn’t actually begin until the one thousandth year of the previous millennium is over with, the same way a decade doesn’t end until the end of the tenth year. A matter of plain common sense. Yet for some reason, human beings felt compelled to celebrate the start of the next millennium a year early. We just couldn’t wait.

      An arbitrary new millennium had dawned.

       16

      All throughout the holidays, I’d been feeling pretty listless, generally disinterested in any kind of socializing. San Francisco was particularly bad. It was followed by my family’s sojourn down to Louisiana to visit our extended clan for Christmas. From Louisiana, we headed back to Indianapolis, the place where I’d grown up, and there we endured the rest of our vacation in a state of relative harmony. I wound up spending most of my time in my old bedroom, reading and watching television. I found myself particularly captivated by a book on Warren Buffett, the world’s greatest stock market investor. At the time, Buffett was America’s second-richest man. His net worth topped out at approximately $36 billion, an amount of money that well exceeded the gross national product of several small nations, like, for instance, Estonia.

      The population of Estonia: 1.4 million human beings.

      gross national product n. (abbr. GNP)

      The total market value of all the goods and services produced by a nation during a specified period.

      Warren Buffett was born on August 30, 1930, during the Great Depression. As a child, he demonstrated a prodigious mastery of numbers and a precocious entrepreneurial streak. At the age of six, he was purchasing six-packs of Coca-Cola from his grandfather’s grocery store for twenty-five cents and reselling them for thirty cents. From there, he expanded his enterprises, buying various items and then turning them around for a handsome profit.

      By the time he’d graduated from high school, Buffett had earned more than ten grand—roughly the equivalent of $100,000 in modern dollars, when you factor in the rate of inflation.

      In 1988, Buffett began purchasing Coca-Cola stock (ticker symbol: KO) in massive quantities, quickly becoming the company’s largest shareholder. At the time, the shares were worth about $10.96 apiece. Five years later, they were worth $74.50. By the end of the 1990s, Buffet’s stake in the company was valued at around $13 billion.

      His profits were enormous.

      The ingredients found in a can of Coca-Cola are: carbonated water, high-fructose corn syrup, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural flavors, and caffeine.

      A $10,000 investment in Buffett’s insurance and investment holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., back in 1965 was worth roughly $50 million in the year 2000.

      Despite his massive wealth, Warren Buffett continues to live in his home state of Nebraska, in the same gray stucco house he purchased in Omaha for less than $32,000 in the 1950s.

      As a youngster, he was rejected by Harvard Business School.

      His nickname? The Oracle of Omaha.

       17

      Amanda’s ashes had been scattered into San Francisco Bay, not too far from the Golden Gate Bridge, on Christmas Day, a few days before the dawn of an arbitrary new millennium. I sold all of my stock three days later, on December 28, 1999. Horvak was stunned when I gave him the news.

      “How could you do this?” he said. “How could you bail? How could you puss out before we even get into Q2? We were just getting started.”

      “I could die any day now,” I said.

      Horvak said, “What?”

      I went on to tell Horvak that Amanda’s death had made me rethink some things. I told him I was tired, that I needed rest, that I needed a break from money and trading. I told him I wanted to reevaluate my position in life. I told him I wanted to try to figure out what I thought about things.

      “This whole experience has made me realize that I don’t really know what I think about things,” I explained. “I don’t really know what anything means.”

      “Nobody does,” said Horvak. “That’s the whole point.”

       My holdings at the time of liquidation totaled roughly $45,000, after taxes.

      Relatively speaking, I’d made a killing.

      Shortly after cashing out, I wrote a large check to an organization called San Francisco Suicide Prevention. Amanda’s parents had requested that, in lieu of flowers, all donations be sent there in her name.

      I sent a donation there in her name.

      I often worried that I hadn’t sent enough.

      Sometimes I felt as though I should have sent everything.

      A couple of days later, in a fit of fiscal nervousness, I took $5,400 and dumped it right back into the New York Stock Exchange, for safekeeping.

      I bought ninety shares of Coca-Cola at $59.18 per share.

      I then gave my sisters, Lorraine and Anne, $2,500 cash. I handed them each twenty-five one-hundred-dollar bills and swore them to absolute secrecy. Lorraine, my older sister, asked me if I was dealing drugs. I told her yes. Anne, my younger sister, asked me if she had

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