the $100,000 day

about a year ago, i met with a former utilities analyst who lives in my neighborhood. it was a real networking meeting - a friend of a friend of my in-laws - but i'm talking to anyone even remotely associated with the business. 

so here's this former buy side analyst in his late 50's, now retired and managing his own account, and over eggs, he said something that really stuck with me. 

he said: 

"it never gets boring making $100,000 in a day"

that got my attention. 

I've been investing since the mid-1990's and i've had good % returns over that time, but i've never made that much money in a day. 

that comment re-scaled for me just what the fuck I was doing. i was suddenly aware of a higher target than i'd ever considered and it contributed to changing the way I invest.

in order to make $100k in a day, particularly in a small account like mine, you have to make bigger bets. and in order to sleep well while putting more on the line, that means doing a little more research, saying "no" a lot, and making only the investments that have the opportunity to return 2x, 3x, etc. 

there's really no point in wasting time with anything else. 

find companies with multiple ways to win (ie sales growth, margin expansion, balance sheet leverage, competitive advantages, and least of all, multiple expansion) that isn't factored into the current price. do the research, say "no" a lot, and then invest in companies with the best opportunities for the highest growth that are mis-priced for any number of reasons. then let time be your friend. 

i still haven't had a $100,000 day but with ESWW, which I wrote about a few weeks ago, up ~120% it's the kind of day that I hope will never get boring.