c01 JWBT016-Busby October 9, 2008 9:12 Printer: TBD
CHAPTER 1
The Trader’s
Edge
I
was in Las Vegas. The year was 2003. I was conducting a seminar at
a large financial event attended by traders and investors from around
the country. The attendees came to the desert hoping to learn more
about the markets. I was standing in the front of the room finishing the
last details of preparation for my presentation when the crowd began to
gather. I could not help myself; I began eavesdropping on some of the con-
versations. In my defense, it was almost impossible not to do so because
the capacity-filled room of 1500 participants seemed to magnify the voices
near me. Repeatedly, I heard the same refrain echoing around the dimly lit
room: the bursting tech bubble in 2000 had been devastating. Noting the
gray on their heads and lines of wisdom on their faces, I realized that many
of these attendees were either retired or approaching retirement. They had
apparently trusted professionals to handle their investments. As the new
century began, their portfolios were heavy with techs and dot-coms. With
the high-tech sector experiencing such meteoric gains, the folks in my au-
dience had been relying on those investments to fund happy idle days filled
with gardening, cruising, playing with the grandkids, and just enjoying life.
Then the dot-com crisis destroyed their plans.
On March 10, 2000, the Nasdaq hit an intraday high of 5132.52. The
bulls had been pushing prices up since 1999. Investors and traders loved
the Internet technology that led to the formation of many dot-com com-
panies. During the year before the crash, market value in the tech-heavy
Nasdaq had doubled in value. These listed corporations offered a variety
of products and services—some practical and some not. Many of them did
not follow traditional business models. Even those that had never turned a