Somewhere early in the year 2000 my mother-in-law was moving
things out of a vacation home in Mariposa CA. I volunteered my help. So
together with Anthony; a young and fit assistant from the Starving Students Movers we started lumping furniture. During a coffee break where we enjoyed delicious Starbucks Latte, Anthony started
sharing his stock investment strategy. Wait...what? Investment strategy?
(Disclaimer: I'm invested in Starbucks at this moment.)
Anthony couldn't have been much more than 21 and it turns out he really was a
student - a student taking a videotape course in "How To Retire BeforeYou're Thirty" and was day trading. He explained his trading philosophy: high growth Internet
stocks. He had amassed a small fortune already and
he did it all with credit cards and margin debt.
I started to wonder if I was
missing out and perhaps being too cautious with my own investments. After a little more thought on my drive home, I called my broker and cashed completely out of the
market. With the Tech Crash hitting just weeks later, I had discovered a new
technical indicator that would define my investing strategy from then on. I
called it, "the Starving Students Bubble Indicator (SSBI):
"When a Starving Student gives you stock tips, get the hell out of the market because it’s overbought."
