Year of the RARE EARTH MINERAL?

A wall Street trader spent half of his wealth aquire raring earth minerals. Here is his letter to investors.

FW: 2011: Year of the RARE EARTH MINERAL

Friends,

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul.
— G.K. Chesterton

New Year’s Day is just an arbitrary starting point, but it can have a great positive psychological impact if we spend a little time reflecting on changes we want to make. First and foremost it is mental adjustment that we need to focus on. Everything else will flow from there. The way we act, the actions we take and the way we approach the market will all flow from our mind-set.

The most important mind-set for investors to cultivate as we enter 2011 is one of flexibility. We probably all have at least some vague feelings about how the year will play out. Some folks go far beyond that and have very strong beliefs one way or the other about our prospects.

I try very hard to avoid the prediction game. The only thing I know for sure about 2011 is that there are going to be some very good rallies and some very ugly disappointment. My goal is to simply navigate it the best I can, provide some helpful insights and make some money. It would be easier if we just had a slow, steady bull market that lasts for most of the year, but I’m fairly certain that is not going to happen quickly or easily.

So let’s start off the new year with the right mind-set. Let others be hopefully optimistic bulls or doom-and-gloom bears — we will just be open-minded and see how it goes.

Welcome to 2011. Good luck and go get ‘em.

As many of you are aware, at the end of every year I move completely to cash and lock myself in a bank vault for a couple days with all of my money and all of my annual trading records. I carefully review all of my trades and try to learn what mistakes were made and what worked. I physically handle my cash; it helps me appreciate that trading is not simply an intellectual exercise involving numbers, but one which involves real money with real wealth creation and destruction.

This year, I have relocated this exercise 2,300 feet underground inside an abandoned mine at a slag dump site in Monaca, Pa. I have appropriated thirty-seven Chinese nationals from a Scandium Mine in Longba Town, Zhuxi Country, China, that have secured and transported my gadolinite, promethium, cerium and yttrium and other rare earth minerals holdings. As many of you are aware, I recently acquired these minerals, as well as the laborers, on a recent site visit to a rare earth mining facility in the P.B.O.C. My rare earth mineral holdings represent precisely half of my net worth.

Periodically going completely to cash (or, in my case, rare earth mineral deposits) is a great way to refresh your thinking and to regain your objectivity. Day in and day out, we carry the baggage of existing positions, and it’s tough to really look at the market in an unbiased fashion when you have something at stake. It’s only when you are completely on the sidelines that you can gain real clarity, and it also provides a good opportunity to evaluate what you have done right and wrong in the past.

Such is the market and so goes life.

Best of luck in 2011. Yaazzzzz!

Source: New York Times website:
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/year-end-investor-letter-a-wall-street-parody/