Michael Ash

Killer NASDAQ analysis and ETF arbitrage discussion investors.com/market-trend/s… @mwebster1971 @AlissaCoran @IBDinvestors

@mwebster1971 There’s a free autograph copy waiting for you when I get my book done for sure

@MikeAsh007 I think you have a head start on me brother!!! Looking forward to yours Thank you.

1 of 2 Come Speak for Me Fair Warning…not a normal Tweet…probably bookmark & read/listen when you have downtime or have trouble falling asleep (DO NOT listen while operating heavy machinery) As Forest Gump warned us, sometimes __it Happens! A #TLDR story about overcoming lifelong fears, preparation, SHOEGATE, the War of My Life Joe Dirt & the ONLY time I told Bill no! A special & deeply PERSONAL Webby Limited Series Ramble On #LSRO I’m hoping this one will motivate YOU to overcome your deepest fears in life, BUT it’s extremely long, more of a chapter (draft)in a book than a tweet. Tip, if you are like me & hate to read, I’d suggest “selecting all” & hitting “speak” (that will have a couple of meanings in a minute or two). Or copy and paste into Word or similar and use the “read aloud” function. FYI…I do that for all long tweets & emails as I’m a slow reader. Oh man, where to start… Bill started giving workshops decades ago and continued until his retirement. For those who got to see him live it was something very special. I always thought of Bill on stage as a combo of Jesse Livermore, Ronald Reagan & John Wayne. Maybe that’s why I sound like a cowboy when I imitate his voice. And no, my imitation doesn’t sound ANYTHING like him…but I’ve been doing it for two decades, so why stop now? Bill was so inspirational and motivating that when we’d teach weekend workshops, I’d have to warn folks not to be too aggressive on Monday (not kidding). I spoke from experience as he’d get me just as motivated too, Come Monday I’d often find myself plunging. If you’d never been to one of Bill’s workshops this is how the normal “Advanced Workshop” went, the two-day Masters Workshop was a bit different, story for another day. The Advanced Workshop would start with Bill going over some of the basics of CAN SLIM. Well, that’s what he was supposed to do, but depending on his mood he’d talk politics for 30 minutes to an hour. While I loved that part at least 51.50% of the folks (liberals) would hate it. Then there would be a section on buying, selling, general market, and at the end, he’d cover current stocks and take questions. For a while, he’d also do questions at lunch, more on that later. That’s a lot of talking for one dude regardless of their age, so he’d typically have one of his key PMs share the day with him…it was a great honor to be picked to do the workshop with him. But the travel could get grueling since it was just in addition to any of the other work the PM had on their plate. I believe it was early 2004 when the PM he was doing it with was ready to move on from that responsibility. So Bill was looking for his replacement…so it went something like this… “Mike, I’d like you to start teaching the workshops with me”. I was totally surprised and honored but I said, “Bill, thank you very much but I have a serious fear of public speaking, so I’m going to have to pass”. WOW, the look on his face was priceless. I’m known for being the dude who didn’t say no to anybody…but certainly not to my idol. So he was probably expecting that I’d jump at the chance. This is pretty much our conversation word for word, “Mike, what do you mean you won’t do it. You have nothing to be worried about you know the system backward and forwards”. “Bill, I’m really sorry, thank you for asking me, but I’ve been scared to death my whole life to speak in public. I’m happy to do anything else you need. I’d rather clean the toilets in the entire building than have to speak in front of a large group (and I wasn’t kidding)”. I don’t think he responded, but just gave me a very disappointed look and walked out of the office. It was extremely uncomfortable. Now I know what you are thinking, most folks fear public speaking…but mine was NEXT LEVEL scared. Going back to elementary school you’d have that round-robin thing where each kid would have to stand up and read a paragraph to the class out loud. I was the kid who would time his bathroom break perfectly so the teacher would skip over me. I got pretty good at avoiding it…which is not a good thing because it just made the fear grow in my mind. This continued throughout elementary and junior high. I’ll never forget the one time it did happen was in my Spanish III class in High School. Oh man, the fear was off the charts because it wasn’t a class where you could just get up and go to the bathroom…I was stuck!! When it was my turn, I stood up shaking, my face turned a Whiter Shade of Pale and 50 shades of Red all at the same time. I held my book and with the worst Spanish accent proceeded to TRY and read the very long paragraph. My Spanish teacher a white dude in his 30s with red hair, either felt sorry for me or couldn’t stand my accent because he said, “SIT DOWN GRINGO!!”. The entire class laughed but I was just thrilled to get out of it. And that was my last experience speaking in public…I found a million ways of avoiding it…again which just made the fear grow in my mind. So, getting back to Bill. He left it alone for about a month and everything seemed normal until he walked into my office after the close… “Mike, you’ll be teaching the workshops with me our first one together is in Dallas on…” Oh NO! Where was my Spanish teacher now? I just wanted to hear Bill say “Sit down Gringo, I’m just kidding”. But no such luck. So now I was in a huge quandary. If I didn’t overcome my lifelong fear, I’d have to quit my dream job! When I say dream job, I’m not exaggerating even a little…there was no one else I wanted to work for no other job I wanted. The best way to explain how much it meant to me would be with this story. I was on the East Coast visiting some institutional clients. One by one I talked to their analyst and PMs about their positions and my thoughts on them and the overall market. Frankly like most Ivy League MBA/CFA types they were very smart but thought they were smarter than the market…very common. As Bill would always say being highly educated and intelligent has nothing to do with knowing how the market works…and their boss picked up on it. Their CEO pulled me aside and said he wanted me to come work for him, but I quickly and politely declined. It went back and forth for a while…he just didn’t get it. He said, “I’ll pay you 4X your salary and give you 20X AUM to come work for us”. I was flattered but just kind of chuckled and said, “I really appreciate it a lot, but there’s simply no amount of money that you can offer me to leave…I’m working for my idol, that’s priceless”. He must have thought I was nuts but left me alone. In my mind, if I’d been given a chance to work for/with Jessee Livermore I would have said the exact same thing. So back to the story. Knowing that you can understand why I couldn’t quit…and saying no clearly didn’t work…so it was time to MAN up! IBD hired a professional public speaking firm to come in and teach me how to give a presentation…wow that just made it much worse! I spent a couple days with them videotaping me which was beyond nerve-racking. But the real problem was I couldn't do their style of speaking no matter how hard I tried. This was a famous outfit (leaving their name out to be polite to them) but they strongly believed that ALL presentations had to be written ahead of time and read “word for word”. NOT MY STYLE, but I tried. We spent the better part of a day just trying to get me to read two sentences, “Hi, I’m Mike Webster and….”. To make it worse they wanted me to look around the room as I spoke and point with my fingers to the right side, then left, and then the center. How f___ stupid is that? Like I’m a robot or something? Anyway, they insisted and I failed BIG TIME! Just couldn’t be fake if I tried…and believe me I tried. I will say their strategy worked perfectly for some other presenters. They would write out their entire speech word for word and read it. But if you were in the audience you’d have no idea….because they were great at it. But It Ain’t Me Babe😉 So, while I’d always have an idea of the key points I wanted to make during a presentation, they were always loose and essentially off the cuff. Not by design, but because I just couldn't read in public…it put me right back to being that scared kid in 4th grade. Okay, wake up (I see you dozing off)…I know this is long but c’mon if I’m going to write a book one day that’s going to be long too. Let’s recap. Bill asked me to speak with him at seminars. I told him no. Then he told me I didn’t have a choice…so what’s next? Well, I thought if I’m going to do this, I need to be prepared for anything!!! So, I built my presentations. In total, I was probably going to be on stage for about three or four hours. For those of you who speak you know that’s a ton of material. Not sure how long that took as it’s a blur, but I’m guessing a few months. Once it was done, I printed out the presentation and bound it. I was so afraid that if it wasn’t bound, I’d trip and the pages would go flying everywhere (not kidding) LOL. I even made backups of the bound presentation and of course, many softcopy backups were emailed to multiple email addresses just in case. The only way I could TRY and control my fear was to prepare for everything and anything that could possibly go wrong. What I’m about to tell you may sound like an exaggeration…but trust me if anything I’m toning it down, so I don’t sound even crazier than I already do LOL. I’d heard that when the Stones went on tour Keith would bring a backup guitar for his backup guitar…redundancy. Well, if it was good enough for Keith… So, I brought two backup suits, 6 ties, 3 belts, many shirts, underwear, socks, etc…I even had extra shoelaces just in case! Then someone told me a horror story about their luggage being lost at a different event and that freaked me out. So now I had to figure out how to get all of this into a garment bag to carry on the plane! So, I couldn’t get it closed with both pairs of shoes, my VERY old but comfortable ones and a brand-new pair I’d never worn. A big dilemma which to take…well…I wanted to be comfortable, so I brought the VERY old ones (big mistake). I flew to Dallas two days early just so I wouldn’t be jetlagged or in case anything went wrong. I quickly found out that Texans weren’t too fond of vegetarians LOL. But besides that, they were extremely nice, and I did take one break from practicing to go to see the JFK exhibition at the Texas School Book Depository (a must-see museum, very heavy). Saturday morning comes, unfortunately, Bill hasn’t canceled the workshop. I was going to hide out in my room until the last minute because I was just too scared to see anyone. I had all my shirts ironed, all three suits steamed, etc… I wanted to wait until the last minute to put on my pants and shoes, so I didn’t wrinkle them. Okay, the clock is ticking. No one is going to save me! It was do-or-die time! Man Up Webby! I thought to myself if my dad could have the courage to fight in Vietnam, it was time for me to step up. So I through my pants on, got my tie perfect and put on my shoes….oh __it!!!! The soles of both of my shoes fell off!!!! WTAF! The panic level went off the F’n charts!!! Remember I had a backup for everything! I mean everything except for shoes! You know the saying, whatever can go wrong will go wrong. And it did. Apparently being scrunched into a garment bag combined with the Texas heat was just too much for these old shoes. So, I ran downstairs and bought some super glue from the gift shop. Nope…didn’t work. So, I begged a hotel employee to run to the only nearby store that was open (Target) and get me a new pair of shoes. I then shuffled my way down to the workshop with my soles falling off every few steps. I had about 90 minutes before I was going to go up and still no shoes!!! As I watched Bill do his thing as perfectly as he always did my stress was at the next level. Was I going to go on stage without shoes? Go back upstairs and get my tennis shoes? I was screwed! Then five minutes before I was about to go on, the guy showed up with the cheapest dress shoes ever made and a half size too small! But I squeezed them on and tied them and it was my turn to go on stage! That’s the longest way anyone has ever said…prepare for everything…but something can still go wrong! The upside was all the fear that I had about going on stage had been focused on the ShoeGate disaster and not on what I was going to say on stage. Once I was up there, I was just so thrilled to have shoes on that the day just flew by. Everyone said I looked relaxed and liked the presentation and I think they were telling the truth. This life-long fear went away (for the most part) after everyone clapped. The moral, as FDR said in 1933, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. Oh and by the way at that workshop and every one after it for years I’d still bind my full presentation (and make a backup). But at that one and at every other one I NEVER once looked at my notes or my presentation…just an off-the-cuff type of thing. I liken my style of presenting to the way Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead) played, he knew the notes he needed to hit…but he’d get there a different way each time. It’s not by choice for me…I still can’t read anything on stage. Bill and I (and the great IBD folks) traveled the country giving workshops together. It was the best time of my professional life. For a while during lunch, Bill and I would be at a raised wedding-type table with some microphones so we could do Q&A while folks ate. Everyone would write down their questions and we’d get through as many as possible. During lunch, folks would write their questions on 3X5 cards and Bill and I would answer them as everyone was eating. It was a little awkward as they’d have our table raised up similar to a wedding party. Bill would look through the questions first and take all the easy ones and leave all the tricky ones for me. Of course, he could have handled them but that was just his way. It kept me on my toes. During the day we’d take turns being on stage but at the end, we’d go up together and take more questions. I’ll never forget the time I totally bombed a question. Someone asked me how to recognize stalling/churning. I went into a long-winded (yes, I can be long-winded in person too) response about shooting a firehose straight up into the air…then said when the water is at the top as it runs out of gas…that’s stalling. I thought it was good, but Bill clearly didn’t LOL. As usual, I probably took 5 minutes to explain something that could have been done in a minute. He turned to the audience and said, “Did anyone understand what he just said?”. The entire place laughed so hard. Then he went on to explain it perfectly and to the point…that’s why he was the GOAT and I’m just a dude😉 I learned a ton by just watching him and how he taught folks. If you’ve read How To Make Money In Stocks then you know he likes to explain things with stories…like the Red Dress or Turkey story. He realized that people could remember stories a lot easier than a bunch of jargon. So, I’ve done my best to do the same. I also learned how to be, by just observing him. While many on X like to post pictures of traveling first class (or in private jets), Bill traveled in coach, with me. In fact, if our seats were remotely close to each other he’d spend the entire redeye flight talking projects with me. Oh, I can still picture the look the folks around us gave me. But he was oblivious…it was as funny as it was embarrassing. One time someone booked a limo for all of us from the event to the airport. Apparently, it was cheaper than booking two or three cars. Oh man, Bill was pissed! That never happened again. Anyways the travel time started becoming too much for him, so we ended those workshops. Then I started teaching Chart School (and eventually Market School) with Chuck. Bill still did workshops but only the two-day Masters program in December which was about a mile from his house. When Bill stopped teaching the Advance Workshop with me, I think we were charging $3,000 (well I should say he was charging I didn’t get a dime LOL). And they wanted Chuck and I to keep teaching it for the same amount. I was extremely uncomfortable with that amount, so Chuck and I completely changed the workshop to bring it up to a level that became Chart School. Honestly, I think it was well worth the money we charged. Our first Chart School was in Santa Monica a mile from Bill’s house…but it was just going to be Chuck and me. We’d worked for so long building out this huge 11x17 workbook with tons of examples. But between that and all my projects, trading, and taking care of my twins, my body was completely worn down and I got extremely ill. I was so sick that the Thursday night before the Saturday workshop I must have stood up too quickly from the toilet and just blacked out. I crashed through our glass shower door, breaking it. My spouse (at the time) wanted to call 911 but I wouldn’t let her, I told her I couldn’t cancel the workshop. We had people flying in from all around the country (some from other countries). I ended up spending the night on the bathroom floor, that was a hard night. Anyway, the following day I let the head of workshops (Jonathan) know I wasn’t feeling great (to say the least) and he was so kind and said, “Bill is just down the street from the event, we can just have him do your section”. But no, I wasn’t going to do that to Bill. Even Bill couldn’t have gone up their cold with a brand-new presentation. I had to do it. Again, time to man up! (if you are offended by “man up” you should probably block me as it can be used by women too). So I took every over-the-counter med I could think of and somehow made it through the entire day without anyone knowing how sick I really was feeling. I did almost fall off the stage once. I had a habit of moving away from the podium and going to the edge of the stage…just to be closer to everyone. I recall right before lunch, I had my toes over the edge and I started feeling dizzy (just like when I fell through my shower door). So, I slowly went back to the podium, held on with both hands…and manned up😉 I hope some of you are getting something from this ramble. The current moral, if you make a commitment…you keep it! No matter what! So, Chuck and I toured the country teaching those workshops for many years. It was a ton of fun and of course, none of the workshops could have happened if it wasn’t for Justin (aka The Saint). I referred to him as my “security blanket”. Because I was always comfortable when I knew Justin was running the PC and was there in case anything at all went wrong. Those who don’t know Justin have no clue how hard that dude works and how smart he is…about everything. Next time you see him ask him anything…I guarantee you that he’ll know at least something about it…if not a lot. But most importantly he NEVER got flustered no matter what! The old saying that it takes a village is so true when it comes to live events. We were all so lucky to have such a great travel team, Jonathan, Bridget, Eric, and many others…all A++ folks. Getting back to the point of this…after the shoe incident in Dallas, I was over my lifelong fear of public speaking. Trust me, Indiana Jones's fear of snakes had nothing on me! I can’t thank Bill enough for forcing me out of my shell. That allowed me to talk to groups and not have to worry…I wouldn’t have believed it if you would have told me that before ShoeGate. Just don’t put me on camera…like an infomercial camera LOL then I freeze like a deer in the headlights😉 Continued....

@mwebster1971 @IBDinvestors Incredibly beautiful, thanks for sharing. I’ve never heard that piece before.

As I sit & wait for my quarterly vocal cord injection… I thought I’d share why I probably ramble on even more normal since being back at IBD @IBDinvestors Short version…I’m just happy I can talk again (see 🧵below for the looooong version) Cliff Notes: About two years ago I found out my problem wasn’t life ending… but a vocal cord disorder (spasmodic dysphonia). Same thing Robert Kennedy Jr has wrong with his voice. Before we figured out the issue the neurologist had me literally scared for my life!! That was beyond spooky and lasted for many months. For those who’ve been there, you get how coming out the other side alters the way you look at everything… Life is precious & too SHORT…when given a second chance in life you view everything and every day differently. What’s really important in life becomes crystal clear quickly! At the worst time before they figured out that it wasn’t a serious neurological issue but a relatively rare vocal disorder I was scared to death to talk to anyone. When I opened my mouth I could hear how bad it was and worse see the confused look on folks face who couldn’t understand. Some were kind about it…some well…not kind Many months of speech therapy and these vocal cord injections don’t make my voice perfect (yes, I’m very aware of how I sound especially on my bad days) but at least I’m able to communicate again & help others While I know it’s difficult to understand me at times you have no idea how bad it was…I honestly didn’t even order my own food at restaurants. I wouldn’t pick up the phone if anyone but family called…it was bad. As someone who loves teaching & talking about the markets it was like living in hell…to put it mildly So when you hear me ramble on a little too much…just remember I’m just happy to be able to communicate again…& I have a lot to say🤣 some of it’s even relevant 🤣 Anyways…the moral… Don’t take ANYTHING for granted Go enjoy your weekend! If there’s something you always wanted to do…go do it!! If your current job isn’t fulfilling your true desires & mission in life…make a change even if that means less money. Enjoying your life is more important than money🤠🤘

@mwebster1971 Beautiful thanks for sharing Mike. I would’ve missed that. Certainly Bill gave all of us a gift that we are still using today and why he’s so revered.

Justin wrote a MUST READ masterpiece👇 We should all be eternally grateful that Bill decided to take a HUGE chunk of his fortune & risked it to build something to help all of US! Not smart from a business standpoint (just keeping it real😉) as his TIME & money would have been better spent running a hedge fund…if he was just try to make more money… But IMO money wasn’t what motivated Bill…after his early success he had more than he needed to get by. He’d often tell me when the subject of money came up… “Mike, you can only eat one steak at a time (yes, he’d often forget I’m a vegetarian🤣) & we all put our pants on one leg at a time” IMO he was trying to do two things! 1. Figure out the hardest game in the world (the stock market) something he continued to do daily until his retirement 2. Sharing what he discovered with as many people as possible! Happy 40th ANNIVERSARY IBD @IBDinvestors @IBD_JNielsen

@mwebster1971 What’s crazy is the low heart rate, mine would’ve been through the roof

Don’t watch this! It’s way too stressful!👇

@marketrebels, @ryanmastro5, @Wayne_Razzi, @GregMkRebellion, @jonnajarian @petenajarian Quick shout out to the Reble Pit Team, they were on fire today! In just a couple hours made the following % gains w puts: TWLO 90 / CVNA 81 / AVGO 33 / WDAY 55 / ABNB 58 / DASH 71 / W -7

@rosskennedy @mwebster1971 @MartyChargin @MarketSmith @eddievanhalen @IBDinvestors Ross sorry for the delay got busy here. No unfortunately I don’t know Erik Moen is he somebody I should try to connect with?

@MikeAsh007 @mwebster1971 @MartyChargin @MarketSmith @eddievanhalen @IBDinvestors Do you know Erik Moen?

The most often overlooked feature of @MarketSmith It gives the answer to the greatest guitarist for any timeframe you want;) Who did I forget? @eddievanhalen #JustFunNotAdvice 🤠🤟🤣@IBDinvestors

@mwebster1971 @rosskennedy @MartyChargin @MarketSmith @eddievanhalen @IBDinvestors I’m working the outline now, you’ll be the first to see their initial chapters. I had the great opportunity to give a couple keynotes to the Paralyzed veterans of America telling them to not let others set your limitations.

@rosskennedy @MartyChargin @MarketSmith @eddievanhalen @IBDinvestors Ross you should get to know one of my absolute favorite people in the world... @MikeAsh007

@mwebster1971 @rosskennedy @MartyChargin @MarketSmith @eddievanhalen @IBDinvestors Wow Mike, that’s incredible for you to say! I’m humbled…

This is some crazy stuff: uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/watch-mon…

American Magic takes flight 🥺 all on board are OKAY! #AmericasCup2021 #AmecianMagic they really needed this win

Quote of the day: "Diversification is a protection against ignorance, It makes little sense if you know what you are doing." Warren Buffett

@mwebster1971 @monsterstocks1 AMAZING!!!

@monsterstocks1 Thanks brother! youtu.be/rSfpwuUauwI

Since some of you dug the reading list... Here are some lesser known complete gems IMHO P.S. If you are going to California, when you get there if the stores are all closed, with a word you can get what you came for☮️😂

Hey @JohnMuchow... Seeing a lot of our favorite names in there!

@mwebster1971 It sounds like I need to spend less time focused on the market, and more time writing if that’s the case!

@MikeAsh007 Thanks Mike...I want that book in 2021!!! I’d love to add one of those things on the back cover.

An absolutely amazing message Mike. It’s wonderful to be in such great company here. Here’s to a wonderful Thanksgiving that we all have so much to be grateful for!

@mwebster1971 We’re just hoping that you don’t block us...🤓

I’m guessing some of you (that haven’t blocked me😂) are wondering where my politics were formed I’ve always said my mentor knew as much about politics as the market, a double genius IMO🇺🇸 Just came across his 1980 book, it might be hard to find no stock stuff here

Classic...

Could be an excellent opportunity for an option play @mwebster1971 @IBDinvestors @IBD_CGessel