Please help me usurp as much as I may from this world

[Gary Thomas]

I’m new here and not sure if this is the correct place to post this. Please feel free to redirect me to a different section of the site if needed. 

I’ve recently been thinking of ways to utilize the market downturn based on my current position. I’m seeking suggestions, advice, possible investors, mentors, critics and any other resources your community may provide.

I have essentially built myself up in tangible assets over the past few years and would like to ultimately now transition into the boring side of finance. (I love it but, it’s not exactly the most exciting thing to everyone.. 😅) I actually got my inspiration to drop out of college from paper trading on a very low quality stock simulator turning 10k to 100mm in about a month. I’d realized it to be unrealistic to emulate in the actual market but, it got me very excited.

I assumed my methodology would quickly lose effectiveness, due to the trade volumes becoming too large to realistically execute. Especially with smaller more volatile companies, which are more easily manipulated by large volume trades. As such they would certainly not allow quick enough entry and exit into positions at some point well before 9 figure trades. The scalability varies depending on what’s being traded but, compounding in that way will always have some ceiling.

I’d tried to seek investors early on but, with a negative worth from student loans and only a track record from paper trading I couldn’t really find financing. I was eventually given the advice to try anything else to make my first million. I took the advice and figured I could at least make my first $25k independent of finance. Fast forward to today and I’ve made it a little bit further than that putting this transition off for quite some time. 😅

I’d always had finance in the back of my mind as I thought buying tangible things cheap the way I have would have a very limited success. At some point it would just become overwhelming. I figured at that point I’d inevitably need to transition towards more passive investments. I would then free up more time and energy to buy more things cheap. The thought process being why stop doing something I’m good at if I can adapt it and keep utilizing the same skill of finding deals cheap.

Well after talking to what I believed to be a scammer claiming to have made a large profit trading $1 fluctuations in gold, my views have evolved. I noticed the volume of their trades would of been about $90mm. And they were executing in and out in 1 minute. I thought that would be next to impossible based on trade volumes. There was a language barrier and I don't think they had a good understanding of my question. I was curious to know if they actually were moving the position due to its massive size. I figured there's no way and the brokerage had to be betting against them or something. After a few hours of digging I found a comment on Quora mentioning "CFD platforms".

I quickly learned two things looking into theses platforms. What I’d done before on the janky simulator may be more easily emulated than I’d originally thought… and the method is prohibited by the SEC for American citizens. 😒 Essentially it is ok to trade this way with offshore accounts but, my understanding is it limits the usable brokerages as you may only use non-SEC regulated entities. However my understanding is also that creating a company on foreign soil would be an alternative. Using this method I believe also would open up the usable brokerages to further include those regulated by the SEC.

This may all be fairly common knowledge in the finance community but I want to include enough detail to make this post understandable to those with little experience trading. As I’m also very new to this methodology, I figure it can’t hurt to run through my understanding briefly in case I’ve missed something.

I don’t know if these brokerages would blackball me from trading CFDs at some point. 🤷‍♂️ Or if they would be able balance out the payouts some other way. The quick answer I found online didn’t go in depth but just vaguely said “they will make hedges to counter the bet you make” 🤷‍♂️. Idk if they would be able to take the consistent hits. Not to sound arrogant but I have complete confidence in my ability here if everything is practical. If I can trade like this I’ll make a lot with or without leverage. I do worry that if I scale too large it may be possible to bankrupt the smaller brokerages; especially if using the even more fringe non-SEC regulated entities.

Any guidance in putting my ideas into practice would be greatly appreciated. Any possible roadblocks or bottlenecks along the way would be great to know of in advance. Please be as harsh and critical of my post as possible. I would much rather be challenged now than blindsided later. I have thick skin 😁

The first step to implementing my plan is sourcing capital. In total, I’m thinking about 500k… or since I’m going into finance 😏 a half a stick. Since I already have a written proposal that I’ve recently sent out to a few people in my network, I will include it below in favor of rewriting the same information twice. For completeness, I will conclude with a brief summary of how I plan to manage the capital when secured.

“ It’s been roughly 18 months since I’ve last reached out to potential investors. Last time I was looking to squeeze liquid out of dirt. And I somehow did; Securing enough capital with a piece of commercial land to buy my Ferrari 348. This time however, I’m offering free money. I’m 25 self made to a mid 7 figure worth depending on how liberally I’m valuing things but certainly liquid for 7 figures at wholesale prices. I’ve got about $30k in student loan debt and about $14k secured with my primary residence. The home should appraise out for 200-300k. I’ve been planning to borrow against it for some time. My credits good enough. It shouldn’t be difficult to get the loan once I have my taxes completed. I was waiting out the 6month hold on refinancing but as of late June it’s a non issue. (In retrospect I could of tried for a HELOC 6 months ago which I’d probably prefer but, give me a break. I haven’t used traditional financing to stack my worth so the lack of knowledge is to be expected. The world of money is far too vast to know everything anyways so I don’t beat myself up over every single missed opportunity… I’m more selective with the mistakes I choose to dwell on)

I’m hoping to get as much out of the current economic downturn as possible. To do so I will be leveraging my house but I want more money. I’m in the process of listing roughly $150k worth of items priced to sell. Mainly a few watches, a few vehicles and a few handbags. They’re all either the cheapest items on the market or priced marginally higher but in far better condition. I don’t really like to sell and I wasn’t planning to list so much but, as I go through my inventory I keep finding things I wouldn’t mind cashing out of now. Especially if it’s a good time to find more deals.

I’m going to be cautious moving through these times and don’t want to over leverage. However I already have a $486 a month mortgage payment and am already paying to maintain a $700k insurance policy. I’ve also mostly eliminated my need for storage and will be consolidating. So overall my monthly expenses are not to be majorly impacted by this move and in the mid term future should actually be lower.

Because of the state of the economy I think I’d like even a little more. That’s where my lucrative investment opportunity comes in. I’ll take some private money on top of everything else. I’m thinking another 1-200k. That should put me at about $3-500k of borrowed money and with selling a few items I should have enough liquid. I think about $500k is enough working capital to easily push myself to 8 figures in the current environment. It might take a little more or less but I feel safe limiting myself to around this figure. I know I would easily be able to liquidate to cover my debts in a short period of time. Even if this ends up being the worst economic collapse of my lifetime; I’m positive I won’t go bankrupt if I’m this cautious. Obviously any investments I make should further improve my position. If things keep getting worse though I at least have the confidence in my current portfolio to carry me through. I could live off my worth for significantly longer than I can live… especially with how cheap I am 🤪 I’m just in it for the sport now anyways.

As far as collateral, I think my commercial building in St Regis falls, along with some of my car collection would work great for securing a low 6 figure loan. I figure I can put up the Ferrari, Maserati and maybe a couple of other things with the property. The building itself I purchased for $15k cash with a trade of a 2005 Ford F-350.

There’s the property on Zillow. As you can see it’s tax assessment is for $16k. It’s great for my expenses 🤣 but, I think that’s a little low. Call me delusional but, the thing sold for $100k in 1996. From what I see in the area and with 26 years of appreciation, I think it should be valued closer to 250-500k. Being commercially zoned, maybe I won’t see that kind of appraisal without rental income to justify it. However I’m ok with that. I believe the entire area of St Regis falls as a whole to be significantly under valued compared to surrounding like areas. There’s a few areas in upstate NY, where I am speculating the market will significantly adjust over time correct. Specifically I believe the lower end of the market will catch up to be more in line with the rest of the region and then national average as a whole. So wether it takes a year or fifty for that to be realized doesn’t really matter to me as I’ll hold this long term. I actually see/saw Rochesters housing market very similarly. I’ve been vocal about it for years. However I’d rather not invest in Babylon myself. So I’ve picked similarly undervalued nicer white communities to invest in.

The reason I say I’m giving money away here is because I am. I’m an extremely safe bet. I’m willing to over collateralize the loan since I don’t want want to draw that much money relative to my portfolio anyways. I’m also generous. I’m willing to pay significantly more than I should here for convenience. I’ll offer 20% interest to the mortgagee. In addition to offering a 7% finders fee as a gift to anyone that finds me an easygoing lender to deal with.

This offer should be very appealing to the right investors. I figure I just need a whale that wants an easy but safe return paid out at significantly more than the going rate.

I can appreciate it if $20-54k isn’t worth the opportunity cost of tying up the capital and a day or twos worth of effort to coordinate for some. However I know offering 20 or 27% ROI on a loan secured with liquid assets is really a disservice to myself. My biggest weakness in business is my kindness and generosity. I create a lot of value and I don’t mind leaving a little on the table for others. As I am here. This is an offer to take advantage of market volatility with no risk. I will be taking a chance and am more than willing to risk losing some of my assets as I believe I can make significantly more than a 27% ROI. If I’m wrong I just lose some stuff. If I’m right as I usually am I’ll hit 8 figures quickly. Either way whoever invests in me will receive the same 20/27% payout. I’m positive someone will take advantage of my offer it’s just a matter of who and how. Either way thanks for the read,

- Gary”

For context, I wrote my proposal last week a few days before learning of CFDs and my ideas for investing have been ever evolving. At the time of writing, I plan to invest the money as follows:

I will first park all of the funds into one blue chip company in the travel and hospitality sector. I know it’s a value trap though. I just think the market is severely undervaluing it given current market conditions. Even though the company’s value should continue to decline, I think the stock price hasn’t accurately reflected that decline as of late. It’s price has nose dived way faster and further than I believe it should have. I suspect the market will react to this and stock prices to rise sharply before continuing on a more natural and healthy decline back down. It’s preformed exactly as expected since making the prediction 🤪 but, if I’m wrong or find a better opportunity I can always change my mind.

I'll then borrow 85% against the position. Giving me another $425k to work. That's where the hookers and co… I mean then, I'm going to look to buy another house to hopefully shelter a little bit of money should I go bankrupt. I'd originally planned on spending about 50-189k however I am looking over different state exemption limits to see what options I have in terms of protecting myself through bankruptcy. I'm hoping I can find a fixer upper for close to its states exemption limit. The thought process being that it would have a much higher ARV but I'm not sure exactly how that will work. I have just today started going through state by state reviewing their policies a surrounding bankruptcy. I figure I'll pick one I like based on policy and location. Then I will create a more detailed plan with a local bankruptcy attorney. I figure it can't hurt to have something like that in the back pocket. As unrealistic as I think it would be to lose everything… it can happen to anyone.

Especially to anyone dumping their cash into sketchy offshore brokerages to speculate with CFDs 😎. Even though I’m arrogant enough to think I’ll come out ahead, I have the foresight to protect myself at least somewhat to avoid being 100% wiped out. My major concern is that if my trading strategy is so good, why wouldn’t everyone be doing the same thing? The answer is either that it’s because I don’t know what I’m doing and will quickly learn why it will not transfer over into the marketplace… Or I’m just really good and that statement is very ignorant of a gift.

If it is a gift I’m sure I still have it. Watching gold, I was immediately able to Identify multiple entry’s and exits for small profits. It actually felt significantly easier and quicker than I’d remembered it being years ago. I speculate the reason is because of golds much higher trade volume and it’s stability. The quick fluctuations could be larger than usual due to market conditions but the commodity is so stable that it just felt better. It doesn’t deviate as far in one direction or the other.

It’s not that it’s any more understandable to me or something compared to trading equites. With equities I believe there’s actually more ability to manage risk based on market analysis. Gold has that to some degree but, in my opinion it’s much more of a crapshoot. It’s more akin to the difference of playing on an American versus European style roulette table. The game is just a little more favorable for my strategy when using gold. Just like in beating a casino, the law of large numbers should allow me to thrive. The way I’m trading I’m looking to make .1-2% profits each trade. (Depending on if I’m trading commodities or equities) On average when I was doing this awhile ago I’d make one bad bet every hundred or so. I’d consistently gotten better as my profitability increased linearly. Which obviously made the money compound exponentially…

I’m going to start out with just $10k in an offshore account to see if things go my way. Should I lose that I will try again and again… but not again… I mean I will do this a maximum of 3 times. If the accounts don’t grow and instead I squander the funds in each,it will be chalked up as paying for knowledge. I would then move on… to my plan B.

As well as giving gold a very quick look, I’ve made 3/3 profitable swing trades over my 1 week return to the market. I figured I had a few bucks in an account already so why not actively manage it. That was enough for me. Having an alternative strategy that’s seen generally as much safer has further bolstered my confidence. I will similarly limit my swing trading account to $30k initially. It gives me the 25k minimum capital requirement needed to day trade (it isn’t the goal of this account but, it’s nice to have as a precautionary feature. Even though I don’t see myself actually ever going above the 3 day trade rolling limit with this strategy, I’d like the ability to exit my positions as quickly and as often as I see fit)

I’ll be executing both plans at the same time. Swing trading doesn’t take nearly as much of my time. So I can soak most of my efforts into speculating on small gold fluctuations while actively managing my swing trade positions.

If none of my trading strategies work I hopefully will have lost no more than $135k total. Even then that would require me squandering every dollar allocated to the two separate methods. As well as losing all $75k of equity in my initial 500k mid term speculation.

So if that happens and I’ve spent about $200k on a bankruptcy plan I’ll have roughly $165k left. I figure if I end up in this worst case scenario, I will go back to buying undervalued tangible assets. I’m a goon though and can roll $165k into significantly more than that in next to no time. That strategy I know will work because my net worth is a byproduct of its implementation.

Obviously I hope that I’m right about everything. If I’m not that’s ok too. I’d rather be wrong about everything and lose some money than to right and not rewarded.

Your new member,

- Gary (A self identified gremlin)