The current contributors to this website are not registered representatives or a member of any broker, dealer, market making firm, national or global stock exchanges. While we are confident in our recommendations but lack the credentials necessary to professionally manage money, we must state that this website is for educational and "entertainment" purposes only.
We started this site on August 25, 2009 with the marking of the Dow Theory bull market indication. Prior work can be found at ARTi Invest and Dividend Inc. We attempt to avoid the narrative and rely on the data.
We believe a chart or a table is worth a thousand words. Also, we continue to invert (as recommended by Charlie Munger) all ideas to challenge their traditional assumptions.
Partner One
As a child I grew up homeless for the first 13 years. In my first eight years, I lived in Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico and California attending six elementary schools before settling in San Francisco.
I left my parents at 13 and got a job at an old Italian restaurant on the waterfront of San Francisco where I learned the value of hard work. While working at the restaurant and attending high school, I also worked at the main branch of the public library's business department where I read as many business and investing books I could find. I am a specialist in Dow Theory which encompasses the basics of fundamental, economic, and technical analysis.
My knowledge on the topic of finance got me into Bear Stearns without a degree. I saw the dot-com bust coming and went to the Federal Reserve Bank. At the Fed, I routinely met with foreign finance ministers and heads of corporations about the policies of the central bank.
After the Federal Reserve, I went to a debt consolidation agency where I became the workshop coordinator City of San Francisco's First Time Home Buyer program. I worked to get the public into homes (in the Bay Area) without getting in over their head, even dissuading home ownership when it was clearly not worth it.
After the housing program, I went to college. Paid all my college debt within a year or two. Bought a house in the Bay Area in 2004. After college, I worked for a mortgage insurer where I reviewed loan documentation and identified fraud committed by finance institutions.
I have an awesome wife and daughter. I have amazing friends who are very understanding.
Partner Two
My life began in Thailand surrounded by the hustle and bustle street in Bangkok. Our family were merchants and that entrepreneurial spirit runs through my veins.
Escaping a major economic downturn, my family migrated to the United States for our own financial reset. With little education and resources, we did what most immigrant from Asia would do, save enough capital to open our own restaurant business.
After years of blood and sweat, our family opened our kitchen to serve a small neighborhood, all the while my dad continued to keep his day job. I asked him why he did not devote all his time to our business. His response was, “The business is an investment which generates income while I work my regular day job”. That was the lightbulb moment in which sent me on the road to seeking my own fortune. I began asking myself, what are other ways that I can make money work for me.
My investment journey began in 2006 right after I received a degree in Economic from UC Davis. After 15 years of investing, trading, and speculating under my belt, I still have much to learn. I ventured into every aspect of investing you could imagine, value investing, momentum trading, option spread, technical analysis. I would come home everyday to watch Mad Money then end my night reading investment books.
This exploration into investing lead me to connect with my current investment partner and mentor. He used to work with my dad and has a wealth of experience in capital markets having worked at Bear Stearns and the Federal Reserve.
I connected with my investment partner and exchanged ideas on investment and life. I started my own blog to journal my investment journey while Partner One did the same. Our approaches were nearly equal, and we ended up with the same positions most of the time. After years of working in parallel, we decided to collaborate on the NewLowObserver.com and started an investment fund at the bull market confirmation in August 2009.
Investing and speculating has been an incredible journey for me personally. Beyond financial lessons, there are invaluable life lesson participating in financial markets. Self-awareness of my own risk profile is extremely important, and I would not know this if I didn’t start investing.
My First Trade
With $500 in my saving account, I wanted to make that money work for me so I put all I could into Intel at $20 in December 2006. The stock went to $27.98 in late 2007 which was nearly a +40% gain. However, the stock dropped back to $20.80 by March 2008.
This was an important event not because it was my first trade, but it taught me the value of time and exposed me to the concept of personal greed. In a little more than a year, the market offered me a +40% return on my investment to which I said, “no that wasn’t enough”.
Understanding that the market typically returned +10% annually, I ignored that fact and continued to roll the dice. Seeing a +40% return evaporate was painful. However, knowing that my money did nothing for nearly 2 years was even more excruciating. Keep in mind this all occurs when CD’s were returning 5-7% annually.