Frank Boland's blog

“Oh, my!  MRK (Merck Drug) is trading like soybeans!” screamed the shocked trader.  It was the spring of 1982 and stock futures and program trading had just been introduced to the equities market.  Prior to then futures, which existed for hedging purposes, were only in commodity markets.  Computer-driven Program Trading– the simultaneous purchase of a basket of stocks-  would then link stock futures in Chicago to equities in New York.  However, the margin requirement (the amount of capital one had to put down on a contract) in futures was dramatically lower than margin requirements in equit

It’s amazing how emotion impacts memory; even if the emotion is not yours.  It was 1947 and the emotional excitement was my father’s.  The war was over and we were living in public housing, the project.  My father excitedly brought me outside to see his prized purchase, a new car.  It was the beginning of our journey into middle class, one that was repeated by countless veterans.  All were starting out equally.  Retrospectively, their arrival into middle class would prove to be a sojourn.

It was a warm summer day in downtown Boston in the 1960s.  I had the top down on my burgundy 1966 Lincoln Continental convertible and sat in traffic listening to closing stock prices.  The car, complete  with black leather seats and suicide doors, was similar to the one in which Jack Kennedy had been shot  three years earlier.  As the stock quotes ended, I turned up the volume on the wooden dashboard and listened to the announcer read off the closing prices of 10-12 mutual funds.  All were Boston-based and all were managed for absolute performance.  Unfortunately, that perf

Imagine building a house knowing that if you wanted electricity, you would also have to build your own electrical power plant!  The amount of additional knowledge you would need is … unfathomable.   The additional expense would be … incomprehensible.  But that is what corporations have been doing for decades in their migration to new technology.  That is … until the “Cloud” came along.  A Cloud made possible by the development of the Internet.

It was extremely difficult, but I had played seven holes without asking my partner the question I was “dying” to know; how many shares of Equity Funding did he own in his mutual fund?  He seemed very relaxed ...  even cheerful.  Yet, I felt his mutual fund had to own a ton of the stock.  For me, in not asking, it was like driving by a car crash and forcing yourself not to look.  You know it’s none of your business.  It has nothing to do with you and yet, for whatever reason, in a macabre way you still want to know ... what happened?

It was late 1997 and a roaring bull market; close to the very apex of the Internet bubble.  Strangely, most portfolio managers were not beating the S&P 500 benchmark.  Lost in thought about this, I reached for my ringing telephone.  It was Roland Grimm asking if I were free for lunch.  That’s like Peter Lynch calling for breakfast or Warren Buffet asking if you can do dinner.  The answer, of course, was yes!

In the process of learning screenplay writing, I came upon this old Jewish proverb:  “We see the world not as it is, but as we are.” In effect, one’s particular viewpoint becomes a prism through which we judge everything ... the opposite of an open mind.