The Road to Riches Tricky And Volatile

At yearend, it’s allowable to tot up your gains and losses on investments. If for no other reason than to confirm whether you should be a player in the game or a disinterested observer. After all, it's not poking your finger into a cracker jacks carton and coming up with a diamond ring. Maybe, your hand encounters a mouse trap instead. 

I do believe that hard work can lead you to stand alone on your picks, dealing yourself a winning hand. But, that’s beginner's nonsense, rewarding yourself for your hard work. George Soros and Warren Buffett did learn how to stand alone and face down adversity and diversity. Anyone else early on Apple, American Express, even Bank of America?

This was a different kind of discovery than Charlie Allen’s birth control pill. Allen, a Wall Street operator, backed a group of scientists who came up with a legit birth control pill with low if any side-effects. Syntex options took me to the moon, but it was my contact with the Allens that counted.  I met Herbert,  when we were both involved in Las Vegas deal making. I’ve learned never to discount serendipity as a vital force in money management discoveries. 

I once thought that building spread sheets with great detail over at least 5 years was the road to riches. But, countless variables popup to negate your projections. 

Warren Buffett didn’t use a spread sheet to rape Apple, violently. Neither did George Soros believe the Bank of England when they told him bold-facedly that they wouldn’t ever think of devaluing the pound. If you can't be courageous in money management then teach it and talk about diversification of holdings by industry and disintermediation. 

I came down to Wall Street in the late fifties. No bank roll, just inquisitives at hand. But I had already experienced the largesse of timely decision making. A street kid from the East Bronx. I’m an alto sax man who could riff on the clarinet. I attended the High School of Music and Art. All of my buddies were formative artists. Later on, I bought their work for a couple of hundred bucks and paid for it at $25, monthly. 

By 1952, Abstract Expressionism was fully in bloom and the Big Apple was its center of gravity. You could've bought Jackson Pollacks for $1,500. In 1979, the going rate for Basquiat was $1,500, too. The kid with a chalk stick, just came from the subway stations where he’d been chalking up subway cars. You know who I’m talking about, the kid who showed us what it was like growing up black in America, namely Andy Warhol’s jazzy sidekick.

David Rockefeller was the only collector worth serious money then, along with Peggy Guggenheim. They were mentored by the heads of museums and filled out their collections with abstract expressionist pieces for a couple of thousand each. I'm talking about $2,000 for Cy Twombly’s work. Betty Parsons was begging me to take a few Mark Rothko pieces off her back. I could pay her the couple of thousand later on. 

Mary Boone was operating in Basquiats for $1,500. She offered me half a dozen pieces, but I was worried about  the paint holding onto his canvases. 

What I’m talking about here is “perception” , a precious quality that if exercised without restraint makes you exceptionally rich. Think of it! You buy a dozen canvases in a newly arrived art movement and you are rich beyond compare. Hundreds of millions, even billions. Later, Mary Boone went to jail because of tax return issues.