How I Went From $1M to $30M+ In 2020: Chat With Emmet Peppers

hi it's Dave in this video I'm going to share a chat I had with my good friend EMT Peppers I've known EMT for many years and over the years we've talked about Tesla in Bitcoin and investing in a multitude of different topics in the

past year though EMT has seen his personal portfolio grow from roughly about 1 million to over $30 million and in this conversation I dive into emt's investing approach and more specifically

we look at the ACT trades that EMT did to grow his portfolio in such a radical way [Music]

all right here we have EMT peppers on my show and I want to welcome you Dave hey how's it going man good good yeah I've been wanting to do this interview for quite a long time um I guess it's been a

while several months since you know you told me about some of the trades you've made this past year and I wanted to find out more information but I also wanted just to learn you know and also share with my viewers kind of what's going on

um I noticed that um you're saying that you finally quit your job and now you're able to kind of share more openly and I want my viewers to know that you didn't really ask you didn't ask to come on my

show I asked you you know early on several months ago and um was patiently waiting so I'm excited about this whole episode actually before we go into kind

of the trades that you've done this year that maybe some people aren't going to believe per se I kind of want to go back into like let's say seven or eight years

ago and I want to so for people who don't know em and I we go way back um we met through the form called Tesla Motors Club it's a kind of a Tesla Enthusiast club and in that club they have an

investor section where a lot of kind of early Tesla shareholders got involved in discussing the stock back you know in 10

2012 2013 Etc and EMT was um an early kind of user in that form you went by um the handle Tesla optt right TSLA opt and that was because like you were using

options right at that time for some of your trades right that's right yeah so I'm curi go ahead I was using option you know I I worked I was working for interactive brokers which I worked out

up until my last day was just October 30th a couple couple days ago and um I had learned how to use options from that job uh to some degree you can do some

pretty fancy trades with options of course um but I I thought options were a good Tool uh to get exceptional leverage

on opportunities such as Tesla got it and so that was uh back in what 2012 or 2013 or so I think so yeah I

mean I discovered Tesla and either late 2011 or 2012 there was a prototype Model S out of fancy uh shopping mall near me in Greenwich Connecticut at the time and me

and a friend of mine from interactive brokers actually who was in it we went to go visit it together and it was just love at first sight seeing that car and that user interface and that screen and

and I got a test ride in a roadster then and that just felt exhilarating but I was really in love with the the the model S interface to be honest oh really

huh did you get a chance to test drive a Model S early on not that not at that time not until I you know after studying it more closely uh with

uh my friend you know we we both studied CL we discovered the Tesla Motor clubs Forum together where I met you and we it was a nice camaraderie that Forum

especially but I had learned um that if you put a deposit down then you would sort of get the right to a test drive at an event near you so I was eager to to

put a deposit down early and get that test drive I think when when did the test drives coming was that 2012 yeah I think late by the toward the end of 2012 or so yeah yeah that's when I got my

test drive and by that time I'd already been buying uh options and leaps you know long-term options in Tesla and my IRA account and such and got it but when

I got the test drive I think as you might have experienced you realized this is the real deal like this is a serious step change in technology and you just that was conviction that experience to

to really go more Full Throttle into investing in Tesla yeah yeah I thought um back then it was like a special time because like options were long dated options Leafs were pretty cheap you know

Tesla they just you know the market the shorts had just suppressed you know the stock price so so much um it was some really appealing deals out there I mean back then I personally didn't I wasn't

that exposed to options and so I was just kind of all stock um and I was reading more about options like on Tesla Motors Club Etc

and it wasn't until like May 8th when Tesla had their q1 profit in 2013 and it just spiked from like it was in the 50s

and it just went up to 70 and then it continued to go up you know the next weeks into 7080 and it broke 100 up to almost 190 and it wasn't until May 8th where I'm like oh man I think this is

going to continue to go up you know it was like it like one of those feelings like oh my gosh this talk has been so suppressed for so long that it's like

it's not worth $70 you know it's worth a lot more you know yeah and that's when like I got into options you know just like actually right after the earnings call like when Tesla was around 70 and

um yeah I didn't know too much I just like was like I told my wife because I was like busy like getting my account set up for options like on that morning the day after I'm like I don't care what

you buy just buy something anything and just liquidate our our down payment that we had been saving for a house you know just stick it into options and doesn't matter the expiration date doesn't

matter the strike date right just buy it um and she was like yeah she was panicking at first but after a while she got used to it you know um but yeah yeah those were those were um some

interesting times though um did were you surprised that kind of the violent move up I mean we're talking about 2013 for people who don't know the stock was stuck between $30 and $40 for like the

longest time and at least going into 2013 and then Tesla reported their first Q won uh Gap profit in 2013 May 8 and

the stock just skyrocketed skyrocketed yeah it went from 50 up to 100 150 Etc yeah it was in the 20s for it would bounce between 20s and 30s like when it

finally broke 40 you just knew something was up right and and um I remember buying options and I think the first round of options I bought I must have discovered in 2011 because the first round of leaps I bought expired

worthless there were like 40 strike options and I just reinvested more of my Ira at the time into more options for 40 strike or 35 strike calls or whatever

and the strikes only went up to like 40 at the time I think maybe 45 or I don't even think 50 so when the stock busted to like 50 or 60 I realized wow I think

it's going to take off soon so I sold all my like in the money 40 calls which are already like a 10xer and I used that to buy like 75 strike calls that were

shorter dated you know um and that went up like 50 fold you know in the next few months and so I made a lot of money when it got up to 150ish and and had to pay

some enormous tax uh taxes that year but uh yeah it was it was a big win for my IRA that went from you know a few thousand bucks to like you know 500 or

between 500 and a million in a year it was amazing you know yeah and my personal account as well but my IRA it was taxfree so it was nice to kind of use that as a measurement yeah I mean

there is just a lot of you know stories and people back in the day on the forums who um yeah we just had the sense of how to suppressed the stock was and to see

it Skyrocket and people in options it was pretty uh an amazing time I'd say um yeah I noticed like um yeah after that time Tesla was just kind of got stuck in

a rut you know it was like what 200 13 to last year right 2019 basically we got Tesla in a range and it's just

pre-stock price what between 200 and 400 or so for the longest time um and it seemed like part of at times it it seemed like the stock was just

suppressed and it was going to Skyrocket right if they could just get model 3 down you know and become profitable but other times it seemed kind of Rocky with you know different tweets going out and

different stuff so how how did you you know handle you know five years of this range bound just volatility going up and down yeah that's a great question and so

when I think of stock price I think of market cap mostly and I saw it in the I don't know like 30 to 50 billion market cap range you know used to be at a two to four billion market cap when we first discovered it somewhere in that range

and I was like this is going to go much higher I think and then it was like this 30 to 50 billion market cap which was I think like the $2 to $400 stock or something like that but I always thought it was like a multi hundred billion

dollar market cap company waiting you know and and I always wanted to be the first adopter and be the first one of the first ones to get the model S first one to get the model X first one to get the

model 3 you it was one of the earliest to get all the products because I think as you and I had talked over the years it's really all about the product right like if you have a superior product as

long as you can build it in some profitable way you're going to win out and and it was I think What Separates Me From You

Know others who gave up along the way is there's a lot of misinformation about Tesla a lot of disinformation about Tesla from you know about competitors coming and and people easily got scared

off and were like all right I'm going to take my profits and run or they just wouldn't invest they think oh Mercedes or whoever is coming out you know Audi rron is going to beat him and they would

just believe the Articles and but I think you and I especially we dive into things and and we'd want to read about experiences of people who test Dr those other cars you know and and you'd have

to also realize when you're reading the experience is it an auto magazine that's being paid through advertising from Audi

or is it like an actual genuine user that's you know giving an honest feedback opinion so you have to kind of read between the lines a lot of times and to get a real impression because we didn't have the opportunity to test

drive a lot of these potential competitor cars and as long as there was no formidable competition you know my conviction stayed pretty strong that eventually you know Tesla would be able

to build enough they'd be able to build as many cars as they could and they would sell every single one they could and uh in the long run would win and so you know it was a long four five six

year bouncing around of the stock price like you said and and um it was painful at times but I think the comaraderie of the forums you and I and I had other friends that were gung-ho Tesla

investors and we would talk with each other try to look were faults in our own reasoning we you know you we'd search hard I'd listen to be you know arguments

all those famous you know Tesla Bears I'd listen to their podcasts and try to find truth and as painful as it was I'd try to find like what's their logic what's their reason it would all boil down to like competition is coming you

know that's the only real argument they'd have that in my opinion could could be legible and that argument just didn't stand based on on

everything we've read and seen yeah I remember you sent me like um texted me some like of some podcasts I guess by one of the Tesla shorts and and I was

like okay I'm gonna I'll listen to it you know it's an episode but after like 15 or 20 minutes it's just like oh my gosh what am I doing with my time it's just like so hard to you know like uh

ingest some of that stuff it's just like yeah it's beyond um yeah um I'm curious though regarding like kind of your early product adoption principles like I

remember you got a Model S uh early on like when did you buy that uh models yeah it's fascinating story I got it um in March in 2013 I was one of the

first 100 or a few hundred deliveries in the Northeast I was living in Connecticut at the time there wasn't even a service center in Connecticut or the the closest service center was queens and I lived in Stanford conut you

know 50 miles away or something like that um and it was I got the delivery and I was like wow this is amazing I love this car you know I looked forward to driving at any chance I could and uh

like two or three weeks into owning it it just wouldn't start up Suddenly and I was like what what happened like what happened to my car I know I'm an early adopter so I expected like bugs and stuff right so I call Tesla Service

Center and I you know they give me kind of the runaround like yeah we'll have someone call you they had some like Ranger service that called me and like yeah we're going to come look at your car and he came to look at my car and he

saids yeah there's a part missing ordering the part you know they gave me a rental car it was like an Enterprise rental car like a Honda you know it's nothing compared to a Tesla right but um a week or two weeks go by I'm calling

try to get updates I'm not really getting an update of when this part's coming and that I'm missing you know so I'm getting worried and I'm thinking man what do people do like at my company interact you know the company I was working at what do people do there when

they have customer service issues they can't get through they email the founder right they guess his email so I was like all right I'm going to email Elon Musk so I guessed elon's email right and this

is 2013 before he was Uber famous like he is now he was he was well known but he wasn't like he is today right maybe a million Twitter followers not 30 you know I don't know what it was but anyway I guessed his email address sent an

email polite you know like hey I'm having this trouble blah blah blah and literally like 15 minutes later maybe 30 minutes later I get a call from the head

of the Queen's service center um and uh the guy calls me he's like yeah I'm sorry to hear about your issues uh we're going to send a tow truck up tonight to pick up your car and bring it back to the service center here and we'll switch

it out with a part a car a part in our car and our our lot and get it back to you within a couple days working and I was like oh that worked awesome and then like an hour later I get an email from

Elon Musk like lo and behold like the founder emails me and it was just like an amazing experience and we went back and forth on email for a little while about think ideas and stuff it was really cool it was really an interesting

experience I saved the email share with my grandkids one day when he's like the king of mars or something yeah exactly um or seem to be probably the richest you know person on Earth and yeah yeah

yeah but that was like a moment where I was like wow this company is different like Elon runs the show for real there and like that that was also helped build my conviction like if this guy is that

Hands-On and like can make things happen that's that's a good sign too yeah he cares what was uh your Model S was it a performance or no it was an

S60 just uh yeah it was uh I almost went for the 40 they had the 40 kilowatt range then it was like software limited or something but um I could barely afford the 60 kilowatt range like you

know at this time I can barely afford the car it was really just to help build my conviction in the stock and I I loved early technology my wife like I you know it was really tense to get that car but

I was able to secure her confidence to get car did you take out a loan or did you just pay cash I think we took out a loan for that first car yeah we did have

a loan um and we were paying it off you know yeah I remember um I had a hard time like you know I knew I had to be close to the product so I was like on

Tesla Motors club like dming all these product owners personally asking their experience back in 2012 you know the first owners and then like I remember I'm like oh man I can't buy a Model S

right now because the stock price is just too low you know it's just like I need to put my money you know in the stock and so I would go to these Model S meetups

nearby uh they're Model S owners right and I would go to them and bring my wife and then the people would be like uh why are you here you don't even have Model S you know I'm like yeah you know just

kind of I have some stock but I don't have a Model S and but it was just like this thing was I knew I had to be close to the product but it was just like I knew it was an opportunity cost you know

anything I put into the the car would be less stock and so I held off until probably early 2014 and that's when I finally got you know Model S and and I just you know just yeah it was um um

interesting and then I think later on you CH you you changed your Model S did you get a p85d or something yeah yeah so when I moved to California a few weeks

before I moved that was 2000 Summer of 2015 I think yeah um I uh sold that or traded it in uh

and I still owed a bunch from the loan um but I I traded that in for a used p85d that had the autopilot soft you know the first generation autopilot too

and uh and my sister and I drove it across country using the supercharger Network um which was a lot of fun uh when I moved to California from

Connecticut and uh met my wife and kids they flew and uh we met them there but it was a week long amazing trip using the superchargers now yeah yeah and then

um that was 2015 I remember we went to a Tesla event it was the gigafactory I think opening event yeah you drove right your P85 there yeah and then you drove

it back um you had to use some superchargers I remember that because I remember you drove your Tesla but we saw some Tesla eex Drive IC cars yeah I

remember that because didn't we didn't we go to the model X event first so what didn't we go to the model X in 201 end of 2015 or was that 2016 yeah I forget um I think I met you the model X event

the yeah yeah we we were hanging fact later in that next year or something but yeah it was I remember yeah the exacts weren't even all driving Tesla was I was like I was like oh man emit is driving a

Model S here but some of these other eex are driving IC cars it's because like you know there's so many super people waiting in superchargers right um this just faster with IC car sometime um and

then you got a model X right when did you get your model X yeah yeah I mean this was a real stretch financially the model X signature deposit I put down for and you know really couldn't I was

really stretching like borrowing from my personal my brokerage account to pay for it and such and you know I was doing better at my job too so it was a little easier but uh yeah I got that I was one

of the first um I think thousand or a few hundred uh model X's this was a signature and uh I can't remember exactly when I got it um I think it was

uh end of the year 2015 I want to say um and or January 2016 something like that and uh

yeah that there was a lot of bugs with that signature version but it was amazing those Falcon Wing doors I had you know I just had a third kid and three kids in car seats and that bench in the middle was awesome with the

Falcon wing door so easy to P put them in you know I was testing out the functionality and I was like this is so well engineered I'd watched that model X you know unveil event multiple times and

been so psyched to to uh to get that delivery yeah yeah I noticed um throughout the years like just the money that you've put into you know the early

Tesla products like you know your Model S and the model X and that model X signature was was pricey you know that's not a cheap car you know expensive it

was by far the most expensive car I've had yeah and uh and then I it was it was like I never use that acceleration you know like they give you that crazy it's

fun for like a novelty sometimes but yeah you did you uh take out another loan for that or did you pay cash yeah no I think we leased I think leasing was available we either did a loan or

leasing for that one and um it was an expensive lease it was like 1,500 a month or something more I don't know but it it was it was fun it was expensive at times I thought like should I really be paying for this but it was like building

my conviction to hold on to Tesla and keep playing that leaps game with Tesla through that long stretch where I was trying to stay you know convicted on this company being the future yeah I

realized it's just a slower product life cycle along the way that you know people get new phone people compared to apple people get new iPhones every or new phones every two or three years but you don't get a new car on average for four

or five years so I just realized it would take a little bit longer to play out yeah how would your investing experience with Tesla be different if you didn't purchase those cars you know throughout the years you also and also

you got the model 3 early on right when did you get yours yeah I I was one of the I was like been 1951 on the model 3 so I can't remember exactly when that was but it was early on yeah or so there's a couple little bugs in it but I

know early on and I also got the solar roof I was the first that's right paying I was I think I was the first or second paying customer in the North in the Bay Area San Francisco Bay Area to get the solar roof installation like that's

right and it wasn't it wasn't cheap either you know especially got the expensive version exactly yeah I got the expensive version and sure enough I'm like man can I even afford this and at

times it was like man can we send our kids to the school we want to go to or should I pay for this Sol making decisions you know we ended up doing all of it but it was risky for a little while and

um and uh yeah like you said like you asked if I didn't buy all those products and have those amazing product experiences personally I I'm not sure I would have stayed invested in test like

I did you know like I I might have exited you know earlier on and or Diversified more you know at least um

but being an owner uh of their products like that you know you you you experience it and you realize like everyone loves everyone's going to love anyone who tries this is going to love then you you see friends you push it on

friends and Friends get a Model S or a model 3 and then they're loving it and then their second car a year or two later is like another Model S or model y or or what you know so you see all that

happen and you just realize like this thing this this business is going to really take off yeah I noticed um I think with Tesla it's like once you like

know the product right you own it um you drive it you compare it with other vehicles then you start to like really understand that this isn't just marginally better than other vehicles

it's like a different Paradigm you know completely different approach and value system in everything thing and it goes pretty deep and I think that's at least

for me I think for others too it helps to be able to discern the arguments from the shorts you know you start to hear all these arguments and you start to

realize wow they don't really know the product you know like they just discount it right they don't really take it seriously and all of their arguments are based upon all these other kind of

random things it's not based on the product and I think being a product owner early on on um yeah it's huge Advantage for for a lot of you know Tesla

investors absolutely yeah like you said the the Bears most commonly they don't own the product and if they a lot of them never even test drove it right and that's just to tell right there that they don't

really know what they're talking about and a lot of them you know they're just talking about paper accounting things and I'm not an accounting Specialist or anything but I I I know how to reach or

I know how to find the Specialists on these subjects right Specialists that I trust right so whether it's from Tesla Motors Club forum there's you know like a username called the account that like no this stuff backwards and forwards and

you know that's more recent but there's always been users on that Forum that are experts or accountants for their professional career and they dive into the details and explain things so you

can kind of go into that the weeds that way in those niches of the investment um yeah research uh by reaching out and Twitter especially you know you find the

specialists in each category and you learn who to trust on on that stuff yeah I noticed um I think one of the things I'm enjoying about my channel is UM as

it's as it grows and gets more exposure I'm able to invite certain people that I think have some special knowledge or really focused knowledge on an area and

So like um yeah like you know I was reaching out to the the accountant on TMC and he's like well I'm not ready for a public interview but you know we can chat privately so I'm like Ah that's

kind of cool or like there's this neuronet expert on TMC named Jimmy D and I'm like hey you know you want to come on my show and let's talk about neuron Nets and he's like yeah sure you know

why not and so you know I got like 50 questions on Twitter to to give to him um on this interview but it's cool because even though like on a form like

Tesla Motors Club they can share at a certain level if I bring them on here I can really go deep and get all my questions answered and then I can share it with other

people so then other people benefit too and so it's like it's kind of a cool thing where I can like pick out those who I think you know might have some insight on you know Tesla or another

company and then learn myself and share it with others so yeah it's um yeah I totally know what you're talking about though yeah picking those yeah I love what you're doing here I think I've watched every or listened to every one

of your uh interviews I usually listen when I'm walking or in the car but I I listen to them all and I think you do an excellent job yeah yeah lots of fun um I'm curious also you um you caught

Bitcoin pretty early on too right when I know throughout the years you've been a pretty strong proponent of it when was kind of your first exposure to bitcoin

how did you get into Bitcoin early on yeah so Bitcoin I think I read some article about it in 2011 I think it was uh yeah 201 must have been

2011 um and it just caught my eye like this is interesting this cryptocurrency thing you know and and this how it's open source and there's only going to be a

certain amount so it defines the scarcity and I thought you know at the time I didn't have a lot of you know I didn't have a lot so I put like a

a couple th a thousand dollar I think the Bitcoin price was like 20 or $30 at the time you know and and so I bought you know however many I could at the time for like a thousand and that was a

big investment for me at the time you know um but it was fun and exciting you know and I started telling all my friends and family and my parents about it and a couple people bought into it

and they're like yeah that's cool you know my dad was skeptical you know for a while or whatever but um I just thought that it was unique and

there was a need for it and that if it caught on if enough people bought it or got into it if it gained like a critical mass which it might have already had I thought that it would just go up

exponentially to become like a digital gold like I I wasn't so of the digital transaction aspect of it like the functionality I didn't know I saw like news reports of people trying to use it

once in a while and like Starbuck or you know some places in New York City that offered it for like news publicity or whatever um but I never did that myself but you know I just bought it to buy and

hold like as a long-term investment and uh then when Mount GX I don't know if you remember that exchange luckily before Mount Cox went down that was like the main Exchange you bought and sold it on I had taken half of my

Bitcoin off and put it in Cold Storage luckily like a few months before it went down or a month or two before it went down um but yeah I lost half my Bitcoin when that thing went down but I have the

other half in cold storage and uh just you know I keep it in the USB stick in a faraday bag you know just in case you

know there's some like crazy solar flare EMP blast it protects it you know just doomsday prepper type thing I'm not a doomsday prepper but you know something like that happens and erases everyone else's cold storage and yours survives

and guess what yours is worth a hundred times more all of a sudden exactly yeah so it's I it's a small amount of my net worth at this point I mean it's it's enough to be a hedge

against a hedge against politicians is what this guy I like navel rakan who you and I have talked about over the years on Twitter I think that's what he calls it but I I think that's a short way to put it a hedge against

politicians yeah um I'm curious like um with kind of your whole thing um I guess with Bitcoin

um like over the years like how like I'm curious I guess more specifically with Bitcoin like it doesn't seem like you

come from like a technical or a computer background right like you don't really that's right yeah like and you you lived in the east coast mostly right is that um yeah for I mean where I'm curious

actually I've never asked you this where did you go to college oh that's a good story that's a good question so um I actually went to three colleges the first two I got kind of kicked out of my

priorities were not very good early on and um in Boston Boston University in North Eastern didn't make it a full year to either one of them and kicked out for

you know substance abuse type stuff you know and and um and then I kind of got my act together and ended up going to Fairfield University in Connecticut uh it's a smaller Regional School but um I

just wanted to get through college at that point and I majored in Communications because I was like that's an easy major just show up and sometimes you have to get public presentations and you get A's you know and that's what I

did and even though I'm afraid of public speaking like everyone I just felt like I didn't have to read a whole lot of books or do a whole bunch of reports and so I I finished up at Fairfield

University and graduated in 2001 or 2002 um what was your major Communications oh Communications okay but it actually taught me a lot because

my strong suit always been math and numbers you know and uh I've always been so fascinated with the stock market okay um and I wanted to actually go into the stock market in

2001 uh or 2002 when I graduated but it was sort of a recession it was impossible to get a job so I was it was hard to get a finance job right out of college yeah because I noticed with the early Bitcoin folks a lot of them were

really kind of computer kind of Geeks or people really into technology but I'm interesting like what how did you kind of catch the novelty or the potential of

Bitcoin when you didn't really have a computer let's say background yeah I mean I think it just I I when I first read it it sparked my curiosity you know when you get curious

you have passion to learn about it and something about it like this whole Byzantine generals problem that it was solving and I like math and I wanted to

read about that and you know um I just thought like this is the future just something clicked to me like you know the future I could see this being like a real thing like why is physical gold the

end all be all like why can't there be a digital gold you know and so I thought you know the more I read about it the more I was just really C and I'm a gam

I'm sort of a risk taker a gambler you know I'm not you know it's funny story how I got my first $5,000 to put a deposit down the model L is I bet on the

New York Giants $100 their second Super Bowl run and just kept double Downing until they won it was 10,000 bucks suddenly and I was like wow when I use half this now finally I have some money to put down on a deposit because we

didn't have extra cash to put 5,000 bucks down in a deposit you know so you know I'm a risk taker always to some degree and I like playing poker you know yeah and um yeah actually I want I want

to dive into that a bit later on in the conversation um this whole idea of kind of risk taking and you know versus kind of less risk-taking you know and kind of

the advantages and disadvantage of both like I know a lot of people they have a hard time I think um putting together both like you tend to side with one angle or the other you know like a lot

of long-term investors they look down on Traders right and um options Etc but I've learned throughout the years you know by knowing people like

you and others that you can't really look down on like short-term trading because the potential is just so massive

you know yeah and like there are a lot of of course you know horror stories or you know people who take risks beyond

what they should you know and they lose more than they should you know and obviously like you know controlling your risks is a big issue or big thing um but

for those who I think have their head on and know how much to risk and know that it's going to be volatile they're going to lose some but they know that they

when they win they can win huge and that will outweigh like you know 10 bad trades Etc like if you can if the people who catch that and they they you know

like some people have done very well you know and I think I respect that you know in some ways because um in some ways like long-term investing is it's a

different time frame it's a longer time frame let's say maybe I'm looking at you know holding a stock for 10 or 20 years but in a lot of ways I kind of think some of the concepts are similar you're taking an asset that you think is

undervalued at the moment and you think it's going to be valued higher people are going to treat it as a higher value Asset at a later date but the time frame is different right a long-term investor might be looking at five or 10 years but

a short-term person might be looking at let's say three months or six months or something shorter and um but the conviction and the the strength of conviction might be different too the

long-term person might have a stronger conviction because it's the time frame is longer but the short-term person might have a little bit lower conviction but the conviction is similar in the sense that they think it's going to be

valued differently you know radically different in a in a period of time and I think that to me like brings together the short term and the long term um

together but yeah kind of um actually well I guess we'll um maybe we'll push um yeah let's push that off to a little bit later because I want to ask you about some of the trades that you've

done this past year um so um I wanted to you know ask you about this first kind of trade you did this year which was the

QQQ and um I remember actually and one of the reasons why I could like you know we could talk about this freely is because this isn't something that I just

found out after the fact right so I mean I remember you told me back in January Fe or December or I remember last year you're saying I'm thinking about setting

up an LLC you know so to um to to track my trades to make you make it more formal and then I remember you texed me telling me that I think in

January or so you put in right 100,000 right into your LLC um so you had your LLC 100,000 and then you had your personal

account and and then you had your IRA right those three accounts basically um and I remember um yeah back in January you're like you know G to make some

trades Etc and so this whole thing covid hits right and um so you short QQQ in at the end of

January is it I bought a bunch of puts in the NASDAQ uh ETF QQQ yeah shortterm puts in the end of January in my personal account not in the LLC yet time

I got it so um for those who aren't aware QQQ is basically it tracks the NASDAQ you know 100 just um it's a way to you know track the market um so you

buy puts on that at the end of January what was your reasoning for that and what were you expecting yeah I feel I've gotten more importantly how much did you put down like what how many how much of of puts

did you buy yeah the first trade I think I bought like uh just in my personal account like 800 contracts okay um and this isn't the actual index puts which

was like a symbol ndx that's trades on the sibo exchange just is um the the ETF index so it's 100 a normal option contract of 100 multiplier and so 800 I

guess translates to 880,000 shares of QQQ or something like that you're shorting or you have exposure to that at a certain strike you know that whole option thing so I bought that but it was only two weeks of expir

at the end of January just because I you know I've gotten pretty good at I think sourcing information like people have told me I'm very good at seeing

things differently maybe because I taken a ton of information from different sources a lot of times sources I don't agree with even I taken information to consider it you know and I'm skeptical of all the

information I take in too even from sources that I normally do agree with right so on Twitter for example I was just observing what was going on in

Wuhan um and I just really thought like this this looks serious like this isn't just some um you know social media ploy like this this might be the real thing

this might be a real you know bioweapon or Escape or or serious pandemic you know and and so I was like you know when this comes around and and in the US or

what Europe like there could be some serious panic in the market and I was worried about you know my llc's portfolio my personal accounts portfolio my IRA you know so I realized I should

buy some of these index puts to HED I've never really done that before you know never you know but I know that's what you should do if you think something serious is going to happen so uh the first time it was like two weeks out and

it expired worthless even though there was more fear building up right yeah but by that time um it expired in early February or something like that February

14th or so I don't know something like that NASDAQ was even higher than when I bought the puts right so how much still going yeah how much did you lose on that

trade oh my personal account I think I lost uh a couple hundred that 100,00 200,000 something like that you know but I had gains I had taken earlier already to offset it with the way I looked at it

was like well I'm buying these puts half off because otherwise I'd be paying um you know capital gains taxes or income taxes on some short-term gains that I

luckily you know I realized earlier so I was like even if I lose these puts they're going to go against some of my capital gains cross off some of them so

it's not as you know so so the second time I was like I still think this is going to come and the stocks even higher but you know I can't time this in two weeks like that's just too risky so I'm

going to go two months out so I think NASDAQ the qqqs were like $235 or something like that I forget I don't know where the NASDAQ index was or where that corresponds to but QQQ was around

235 and I bought the put and I thought like I think when this comes I think there could seriously be a 20 to 30% drop in the market like pretty quickly you know because it's gone up so much

too um so I bought I think 200 strike prices for the puts that were like two months out they expired in like late April or something like that and uh and

then sure enough like a few weeks couple the next week and the following weeks it like started tanking the market and I thought also like this is like sort of lucky or I don't know for or whatever I

you know I I thought my my whole you have to know when you're going to get out of your trade right you can't just buy a trade and expect it to you know you have to have a plan right my plan

was when the fear index was the highest in the US like when I thought like what I was seeing in Iran by that time and

uh in Italy on social media like citizen journalism you know I thought was serious and that's bad you know and when that type of scene comes up in some city in the United States and it's publicized

in mass media in the United States that's when I'm going to get out because that's going to be the worst thought you know and so sure enough New York City gets hit hard right and sort of like that same kind of coverage is happening

and everyone's thinking the world's any this is terrible and I'm like all right I'm getting out now because I made 20x my return the NASDAQ was at like 180 at that point I'd bought the puts for like

a120 or something I sold them for like $25 or something like that so I also had bought them in my LLC and my IRA account and my personal account that second time which was good so the first time I

bought a just in the personal account that was like the bulk of my assets and the second time I bought in all three accounts so so got it for those who don't know um when you buy a put so the

QQQ was at 235 you bought a 200 strike put for two months out what that means is it gives you the right to sell your QQQ um I guess 100 shares per contract

at a price of $200 right um and so when QQQ drops to 180 then you have a 200 strike price you

could sell it for $200 but the the actual price is 180 so the price of the put is that $20 plus time value so basically um yeah I mean that's a huge

trade because to buy it for what a doll 30 or something right doar 20 I think yeah something around there see it go up 20 times in value um within a

month or so right basically yeah a month I there's still like a month left to exp I sold it in Market sometime and then you exit you know close to the bottom um part of that you know is like I guess

you had your own framework which is you know the fear index at the highest um part of that probably is kind of luck too because like yeah it's hard to tell exactly I mean luckily the FED came out

you know just a few days after that saying we're gonna do unlimited QE you know back stop the market at all cost right um so that helped you know um I'm

curious though um yeah like the total trade like how much much did you make out of that like in your different accounts yeah I think uh I made like

um I must have been I think I made a little over in all three accounts like two and a half almost three million yeah

yeah okay and uh and then I used that cash like over the next month like just to make sure the stock market wasn't going to keep going down I I wanted to make sure it's going to come back you

know as it started to come back I used that cash you know in my personal account mainly to buy Tesla stock because I was like I'm just going to buy the stock the options I'm getting heart attacks with the options you know like this is the time just to buy the stock when it I

bought a whole bunch of Tesla stock at like 420 before the split when it was coming back from it's like 350 or 380 low one day or whatever the next day so I bought a bunch of stock around there and I also sold some tesle stock when it

was like on the way down around 700 yeah before that um so I did really well on that in the personal but in the LLC account I wanted to diversify a little bit more and employ my kind of strategy

to other other names and stuff so we I bought uh I think you and I chatted about Square as an interesting option for example so I bought I had bought um

Square leaps uh I think Square was trading at like $50 or 40 or 50 or something like and I bought like 120 strike leaps I think and for like a couple dollars you know something three

or four dollars but for like two years out you know because I think the leaps short term like you said it's it's risky and and as much as I like to take risks I think

the leaps the the longer term options um is the best risk reward sometimes it's better for my stomach at least a lot of times but so I bought

Square Pelon leaps or the peleton didn't go out that far but uh I bought 60 strike and now it's like1 120 that was like $30 at the time trading so that was

good um you know a couple others that haven't been quite as good yet but uh I still think have time to run more so then you stuck most of your money I

guess into different so Tesla stock but also different calls of different companies um how did you what happened after that like did you just hold on to these

companies yeah I've been holding on to them I haven't done much I've you know had a little extra cash in my LLC account to play around with I tried to uh time when Nicola you know I've

always known Nicolas as you know you and I both know it is and anyone who's know followed Tesla for a long time seriously knows it's sort of been a scam with that with that guy and such maybe he really believes what he's saying but he's just

crazy I don't know but um the whole hydrogen fuel cell thing is just never going to really pan out to much um and so when Nicolo went up in earlier mid

June I think it was after some spack deal or some deal uh it went up to like 70 or 60 or $70 from like $15 you know and I think it was right after the spa

was announced or something or some corporate action I just thought like man this is this is crazy like how did this market cap triple like over the weekend

you know and or over a couple days and I think it was like a Wednesday and was trading at like $69 I just thought there was a chance it was going to tank the puts were so expensive though shortly

the stock was impossible like to find a locate and if you could it was like very very very expensive but the puts were even very expensive and but I just thought there was like a 20% chance or

more that by the end of that week within a few days the stock would just crash back down to like 30 bucks even though you know so I bought these 40 I think it was 48 strike puts and the stock was at

like 65 or $70 and uh yeah the next two or three day they were only like two or three days it was like the most short-term trade I've done um but you know you can't be afraid to take these types of

chances you know and the stock went down to like I think $50 or50 4 or something at one point but then it went back up and and so that turned out to be a worthless trade but it was like 20,000 or

$30,000 of my LLC account uh which was a small percentage of my LLC account at the time um but yeah so I I you know I took a risk there too and it doesn't always pay off yeah yeah and then in

your personal account you ended up buying leaps right with Tesla as well yeah so on my personal account and the LLC account I bought a bunch of leaps in January and I've had leaps in

my personal account since last year okay or a couple years ago i' I've had leaps in my personal account all along I just keep rotating them every couple years cost as cost effectively as I can as

they you know yeah like uh for those who don't know who don't know leaps are long dated option calls so they're a contract where you can buy stock at a certain price but down the road I and so you pay

for that um ability or that contract to buy a stock at a certain price um yeah I remember um back in the day this was like man like 2014 or something I

remember um I wrote on Tesla Motors Club kind of a uh a strategy to kind of use stock and leaps you know together and when you think the stock price is high

you just transfer all your you know Tesla to stocks but when you think the stock price is really low right it's in a lull then you kind of transfer it to leaps um and so you kind of you know

take advantage of right The Leverage but the problem with that strategy is if the if the lull is like too long right yeah yeah then you get smashed because you're

waiting waiting waiting for this like thing to go up but it let's say you run out of cash or you give up let's say you right before it starts to go up because

like it's just been too long um yeah I mean like what's been your experience kind of you know holding on to let's say you know leaps these option calls and

you know like let's say in the case of Tesla just you know wasn't you know going up up for the longest time and your account is bleeding money like you know what do you do yeah that's a great

question I mean I sort of employed that strategy myself I thought the same way and and I I don't know what year 2016 17 I transferred a lot of the stock I had

exercised from the earlier gains in 2014 or 13 and 14 into leaps in my IRA account especially with no tax consequences when you you know do that

and my IRA account went from I don't know like 500,000 to like a year ago I think it was like 70 something thousand so it dropped substantially you know I

still had a bunch of leaps um there were like 450 strike leaps for January 2021 but a year ago those were trading very cheap you know compared to now and those

450 strikes after the split are now what $90 or something like that so back then you know like you said it's it it's

painful and uh as but because I spent so much time I spent you know thousands and thousands of hours like researching Tesla to like keep my conviction going

you know and try to look for faults in it in my belief and I couldn't find the faults and you know I I just felt also because of 2013 2014 where I had that

big windfall that it was sort of like house money psychologically to speak I guess you know gamblers they talk about house money like if you win a bunch of money then you keep gambling with that money and it's just money you won from

the casino house anyway so what but you know you kind of emotionally detach from it in a way and so part of my thinking was a little bit of that but also I had a job that was stable and paid me well

and I could survive on my retirement plan with that company that was separate so it was almost like completely compartmentalized or segregated from my

you know main personal uh you know living um so those two things I think helped me stick with it and the fact that I just you know studied it you like

like you do probably not as much as you or maybe as much as you I don't know but uh I would read those testal motor clubs forums all the time at night I'm on at my wife's like what are you doing I'm reading these motor you know you skim

through it and you read Twitter look for it or you know read all the analysts you can and uh you just know that the stock that the company is going to be very successful and it's just a matter of

time before the stock would catch up yeah like I I know some other folks too that like you know um really just you know believe D that Tesla was just like

undervalued and suppressed and they just kept on you know holding on buying leaps but just getting really destroyed you know especially like because the expectation

was like Hey 2018 you know we're going to see a huge you know spike in the stock price as Tesla like it's profitable and everyone finds out but then 2018 becomes this like long like

you know disaster or you know drama story and in 2019 it's not looking you know that great um at least the first half

and yeah I have a friend who just like got demolished you know because he was just holding on to leaps and like for when I look at that I'm like you know

like I me it's really like like really demolished like you know like we're talking like you know losing 90 95 95% let's say of your portfolio value value or something ouch yeah to the point

where it's like you don't even have that much left you know and yeah oh and um painful yeah yeah it it was it's painful and then um and then like for when I

look at that I'm like wow man this just painful and you know I think most people would just give up you know it's like hey that's it I'm out of investing fold the towel you know it's over but like

this guy you know he just like he kept at it you know and he saw I think I don't know if the numbers are exactly correct but you know he went from basically like a million in his

portfolio down to like 50,000 right through through this whole time and he's still holding on to leaps like like rolling them out right basically wow and I'm like wow you know I'm not I'm not

giving feedback because I'm like wow you lost a lot you know and you're still like doubling down and then he he just he like it's like winning the lottery

right because Tesla stock goes up and for some reason the guy doesn't sell you know just like he's convicted convinced that this is just the beginning right

and so he holds this he holds his leaps you know Tesla's like 1,500 2,000 and whatever yeah and then he emails me you

know as Tesla is over 2,000 he's like hey I've made you know several million dollars or something you know my retirement is now

set and like you know I'm glad I held on Etc and it's like it's like wow you know it's like these type of stories like I don't know if completely completely

believe it if I wasn't like I didn't know these people personally like I actually know them pretty well like I've seen them over the years many you know corresponded met him a person Etc I've seen the ups and downs so it becomes

real it's like a real life thing you know it's like wow you go from a million to 50,000 back you know you go to three to four million or five million I think Etc yeah um with and it's the power of

like it's not just the power of like options but it's combined with these radical volatile moves you know in the market especially with certain gross stocks following a a long period of

suppression right of stock price suppression and so it's like um I'm wondering in your case because in some ways that is I wouldn't say pathological

but there is an element of like it's like is this guy thinking you know sanely you see your IRA drop from 500,000 to like 70 something

thousand and most people would be like throw the towel I'm done you know um but for you you have a different perspective right and again you're saying you had a

nice job High income High savings um you know retirement Etc so that cushioned a lot of it as well but you know to have that big of a loss and also your

personal account had a bigger loss right I'm guessing right big loss Yeah Yeah from that period absolutely um yeah and so when you're down let's say I think a

year ago what your IRA a year year from a year back from now it was what uh you said 70 77 something right and then your

your personal account was what it's like a I think it was like 500 or somewhere between 500 and a million don't something like that which was a lot higher than it was before the 2013 you

know my IRA and my personal account before that 2013 2014 windfall was like they were both like 10,000 bucks you okay yeah so they both went up a lot but uh okay yeah my personal account now it

gone it was as high as like 3 million at one point and then it went down to like 1 million million or less I think it was 500,000 by a year ago yeah maybe even that low yeah okay so I lost a lot yeah

so you see this you know dramatic so you yeah you've gone through a lot of ups and downs right you know yeah ups and downs um is there something you think about your personality

where you're just a little different like psychologically at all or just like your view of money like is it just is it just with your relationship with money or do you see something a little bit

differently as well just like in general you know are you just a little bit different in how you view things absolutely yeah a lot of people say I'm you know I just see things differently I

see opportunities a lot of times that other people might not see or you know if I see you know something happen in the news or whatever I might have a

different take on it than most people um and then I people might say like that's weird why would you think of it that way and then I'll say oh how do you think of it and then it would be kind of weird to me to think how normal

people think of something you know and I'd just have to adjust or I'd have both ways of looking at it you know so there's certain things I see you know that I think maybe I have conviction in

myself enough confidence in myself you know like me you and I talked about like Diet nutrition in the past for example right and so for example I think you know we talk about Corona virus I think

we're in the worst epidemic of our times in terms of obesity and no one talks about it you know nutrition is terrible in modern society you know and tons of people die we don't even talk about it

you know it's like just accepted and so I see a big picture there like how come no one you know so I just see certain things that I see the world differently

I guess you know um in a lot of ways and it helps me and it hurts me in certain ways maybe but um I think it it helps me in investment opportunity potentially

got it um I asked you um what earlier today to send me some uh portfolio what your portfolio is right now right in your personal Ira in LLC and you sent me

some screenshots and from your personal you're at 22 million so we're recording this right now uh Sunday night November 1 right so yeah after a really harsh day

on Friday I'll tell you that was that was a painful day yeah um so 22 million in your personal account 5. 2 million in

your IRA and 5.7 million in your LLC so right yeah so we've got about what 30 33 million right now in those three

accounts and then I remember you're saying you pulled um what you said you pulled 3 million out of the IRA to invest in a SpaceX fund yeah I did that earlier this

summer okay a 38 billion valuation it was pretty lucky I had that opportunity to do that and I was jumped on it as soon as a friend you know guy I know works at a company called shares post and he came across it's like I'm doing

it and I spent like the whole week just making sure I got all the paperwork done to do it because I was like this is Once In A Life Time got to do it so yeah I did that in my IRA account actually which is nice so there's no like tax

issues to worry about you know okay and then you also pulled some money for a house right yeah so I pulled money for my personal account you know my life's changed in the last year dramatically

because of this and and so um I'm working from home with Co and I have a small you know you know 1800 2,000t house with three kids and a wife and so we got a bigger house that has a home

office and and so I pulled money to buy that house and we're renovating it right now before we move into it and got a house for my mom and mother andlaw to kind of live in together and share which is not you know so like what do people

do in the NBA when they get a big contract they buy a house for their mom you know so that's kind of what I felt like was good to do because they both live far away but they can kind of stay with us uh you know if they want not in

our house but at a house nearby yeah so the 33 million is not including right the 3 million you pulled to put into space sex plus money for a house so we're looking at you know probably

something closer what high 30 Millions right um yeah compared to a year ago right asked you to send me like a year ago um your um I guess I actually have

the figures here so a year ago your personal account was around a million it seems like what I wrote down and then your IRA is 76,000 that's what I wrote down so you're um and that was pretty

much all your assets right I mean you had your house 200,000 with a 401k a stock plan but yeah altogether you know if you go a year and a half when the

Tesla stock was $180 it was like a lot less that's true so let's say you go from a million about a year ago um and

then you go up you you see your you know net asset worth go up to30 to $40 million right right in a course of less

than a year um like how do you process that like what's going through your head it's hard to process it's it's wild I mean especially in the year of Corona like you know it's when you're in

lockdowns and going crazy with kids at home young kids trying to keep them busy and juggle all the stresses of everything and and uh you know a year ago if you asked me like hey emit what do you want to do what's your dream to

do I would have said oh I want to start a hedge fund to make a lot of money you know I I think I can a good that would be my purpose incentive to just be a start a successful hedge fund you know and then all this happened and I made a

ton of money and I was like well the world's different to me now you know I don't I have enough money I'm not really interested in just making more money to start a hedge fund you know that's not

really something I want to do and and I I kind of thought about and prayed about it a lot and and uh at some point I realized you know if I do have some special ability to have these like

amazing investment opportunities to realize you know if I if I have some god-given ability that others don't instead of just using it selfishly to build up my own personal accounts I

should start a hedge phone but do it for something good you know and so that's when I started preparing for this next phase of my career where I left my current job which was very good and I really liked it and I was treated very

well but I just felt like you know once your net worth is a certain amount you you shouldn't be working for someone else you know you need to do something a little different you know and so so this

hedge fund that I'm doing now is is is is more of a charitable thing where there's half the fees are is being written into the prospectus that'll go to charity so that's that's hopefully if

it does really well the dream would be others follow suit and it starts a whole new breed of investment managers that you know right into their perspectus that a certain percentage automatically

goes to charity got it um I'm curious like um seeing your you know net assets go from a million I guess you had your house too right do you had it any put a down

payment so it's probably more than a million of net assets before that right yeah I mean the house we had a big mortgage on it we still have we didn't pay off the mortgage on this house but when we bought the new house we just

paid it all off we just paid cash for it yeah but this current house we're in now we never paid it off we just s so did you I'm curious as you know your net worth incre or net asset worth I

personally don't like the the terminology net worth personally just because like um I have a strong belief that you know material possessions don't

really connotate or signify worth you know in any real manner you know so i' like to just compartmentalize it saying uh your assets asset Worth or net asset

worth um so you see it you know go from 1 million to 30 40 million um are you putting aside some of those of that for so-called let's say safer assets or

let's say um income let's say passive income or something to you know in case something happens you know where you know I don't know what's your take on that yeah something I've been struggling

with I mean I have taken so much I have so much capital gain like my first order business is figure out how to most efficiently deal with my capital gains this year you know I have like something like 7 million of capital gains this

year to figure out what to do with from the trades I did earlier with the q's and then selling Tesla on the way down buying more you know so that's a huge tax bill I got to worry about and uh

that's really my priority in a lot of ways on the personal Finance front but at the same time like you said I need to find a a better Safety Net in case Tesla does go to zero right but at the same

then I think well I am confident that if that happened you know I could find another job if I had to absolutely it's not the end of the world you know like I'm not g to I've realized that money

does not equal happiness you know I have money and it's great it can solve a lot of issues um but I know I have the capability to earn a salary if I need to that is comfortable if worse comes to

worse so I'm putting that up what my dream is to kind of hold the test the stock as much as possible and uh sell deep out of the money covered calls you know for income

and and uh if some of those calls ever get exercised at some point then I cash out at a good price for some portion of my Tesla stock you know but that's sort of my

plan um but anything can happen the stock market could get cut in half in the next week if some crazy election Shenanigans Gohan for examp I don't know who knows we don't know yeah definitely

yeah like I've kind of had this you know investment approach where you know I set aside I I have a kind of compartmentalized approach where I have some Assets in real estate that are

incom producing and that can cover kind of like our living expenses Etc and then the rest of my assets are more to kind of higher risk or higher reward you know

investing where I'm going after kind of the big opportunities and so because I have kind of um more of a safety net of certain assets it allows me to take

bigger risks with my other portfolio or my main you know asset portfolio and I think um smart yeah so in some ways it it like I've always had this thought

where um I don't think most of the investment field is capitalizing on that true essence of investing like on really investing in the big Winners like these

huge like decade winners generational winners like these clear breakouts you know I feel like a lot of the investment field is kind of like tainted with a lot

of fear uh and preservation of assets and I completely understand that but I think it when you start to mix both you have like different needs you have one

need where you do need some Safety and Security and retirement Etc take care of your family but you mix that together with this need to grow your assets and you put them together then you get this

weird thing of like of of like diversifying across these weird asset classes and you cut all of the potential gains and and it just

becomes this weird like fear driven approach you know um and so personally like I kind of have this thing where you know if I'm going to really you know

latch on to what I think is the true essence of investing and really these outsize crazy gains um it kind of helps me to to mentally think okay I've got

this other set of assets that are income producing that are not really correlated um and that you know who cares if my portfolio does go to zero at least you

know I mean even if I didn't have this other basket of assets of income produc producing real estate I I have a similar attitude to you well I'm okay I could go to work find find something to do you

know I'm not very particular and like needing to live in a big house or fat house you know I'm actually happy with living in our RV yeah except for when it gets kind of

cold in the winter time but other than that you know just hang out at the beach or something um yeah but um yeah it's like um I guess um I would be like you

know more leaning to to to that whole real estate as a potential for income but the problem with real estate I'm finding out more and more over time is it kind of requires management because I

me we have you know one of our main properties has like you know property management Etc but it's like there's always things that prop up you know it's

like and it's unexpected things that we just have to get involved with and it's like yeah it's just like for example last week you know um we got hit with a

lawsuit and I'm like oh my gosh and it's like why or what you know and it's like not even our responsibility it's like it's like a tenant who runs like it's

part commercial they run a a store and they got hit with a Ada comp uh lawsuit which is basically handicapp person comes in and they find it's not up to code and they

sue the the store right and we have like nothing to do with it right it's like the tenant's responsibility but then the lawsuit is put to the owners or something right and I'm like gez now we

have to be calling up lawyers and trying to defend the suit but it's not even our responsibility and like having to get an inspector out and all this stuff and so it's like there is some downside I think

to you know in terms of and Warren Buffett talks about this a lot you know real estate is really interesting except it's got this like overhead cost this maintenance management cost right built

into it um I haven't really looked into like you know other forms more passive let's say I mean there's a bunch of you know obviously more passive you know investment options like REITs or you

various you know dividend you know plays Etc but I mean what are your thoughts on that like kind of I mean I know you so you bought your house full cash yeah the new house that won't move to yet exactly

so that's in a way diversifying right you know I can always take out a home equity line of credit or something on that yeah so you know that's likely not going to go to zero and then you diversify by taking what 3 million into

SpaceX so that's another diversication play um it's somewhat though correlated because if Elon Musk you know somehow you know dies disappears Etc you know

that is Tesla and SpaceX stlink is all you know correlated yeah um so you're highly though you know um I guess um

dependent on you know Tesla or Elon Musk right Elon Musk is um yeah yeah yeah what I was thinking about I mean the thing I hate taxes you know there's only

two things for sure in life death and taxes right and and I hate taxes and that's part of the draw of the leaps of the long-term options because they're always more than a year out of expir and so I like to hold them for at least a

year so if you sell it for a huge gain then it's it's long-term gains instead of short-term gains taxes right um so especially in California now the taxes

are absurd with the you know at the highest rate and so forth so um I mean one thing I was considering is the IRA account has done so well maybe I

should just sell that and put it into something really conservative and keep that cash in something conservative is like a real emergency buffer and you know obviously you don't want to take money out of your IRA before you're 60

because there but there's there's an extra like 10% penalty right but if worse comes to worse you know x million dollar with an extra 10% penalty can still help me out a a great deal if

Tesla went to zero you know but at least if I do that I don't have to pay taxes to diversify right now right that's what I'm really worried about is like all right I already have this huge tax bill for this year do I want to create a huge

a lot more of a tax bill for myself this year you know to pay the you know the Govern the maximum you know I'm trying to figure out I'm donating to a foundation I'm starting I'm considering conservation eement Partnerships as a

possible way to reduce taxes you know there's all these things I'm considering and it's just kind of a headache because I don't want to pay the maximum amount of taxes there's no one in with the amount of money I made I feel like I'm the only one with this amount of money

that would be paying the max you anyone who's got this has all kinds of options to reduce their taxes and I haven't figured that out yet you know so so that's what I'm most concerned about in

a weird way is like how do I be more efficient with not paying the maximum amount of taxes just to diversify you know and so so what I've thought about

is maybe just the IRA count just yeah getting out of all my Tesla exposure there and putting it in something much more just cash even just yeah yeah yeah I've been um you know like thinking

about like the whole thing with like SpaceX you know like I'm doing this uh series on starlink and so like last week I excited for that yeah I put together this whole like like research

presentation and this week actually tomorrow I'm releasing it so it's like a 45 minute video on starlink with like 70 something slides and as I get into it

more I'm just like wow starlink is just a crazy company I mean this thing is like it just has so many things going for it you know um and anything Elon

touches anything Elon does you just know it's going to become gold pretty much it's like he's done this time and again you know well there was that just like who why do people doubt his ideas or his companies still like it's crazy like any

of them are going to be you know sure he might fail one or two but the majority of them are wildly wildly successful true yeah I mean Elon isn't fail proof you know there are times where you know

he makes his mistakes um yeah I mean like um I think the more he's involved though the better like for example Solar City he wasn't that involved and I think because of that Solar City didn't have

like this awesome amazing Superior product you know um and they were kind of vulnerable Etc but um yeah I think what kind of you know my line of

thinking is like you know it's like man Starling and SpaceX is actually like an amazing I think opportunity you know I was actually when you were investing in SpaceX I was super tempted to get in into it as well at the time I tried to

get you into it you were like it was too it had to be really fast I understand I was like I got to know by tomorrow you know and you were like I don't know if I was in your shoes I probably would have hesitated and not done it too yeah but I

think for me it's like um I have to look at a few things one is okay it's not a true diversification play because it's still like Elon you know um and number two it's like I'm gonna have to pay

taxes on my Tesla Holdings you know and it's like it's not just federal taxes it's state taxes as well and so I have to calculate all that and so it's like you know that's like that's a lot you

know it's like yeah over a third of whatever so that's why I did it I was lucky enough to get it done in my Ira yeah I mean that makes more sense exactly yeah but for me to like

liquidate some Tesla or a chunk of Tesla you know give you know 35% or more right I say to the government and then take the rest invest in SpaceX I mean that

could make sense but it's kind of like yeah it's not a clear cut thing because I I still see you know Tesla having an amazing like road ahead you know for the next 10 years I'd love to obviously pick

up um SpaceX I do have some money set aside right now actually um to get into SpaceX I think um so when the opportunity comes I think I will yeah no I think it'll come again I mean there's

these SpaceX funds that you know they have uh uh people trying to get out from time to time I guess you have to act quick apparently you know my friend works for the shares post companies he

says it's like the hottest preo thing they have and when an opportunity comes you got to jump on it yeah there shar's post I was also looking to forge Global they're another big kind of second yeah

there's a few of them yeah there's a few companies that do this yeah yeah um so I want to actually ask you about like I remember we had like a a text conversation back in

December or so of last year and your whole thing was like What if or what price would you cash out let's say yeah your Tesla shares and you're and your

whole thing was like you know hey Tesla this year could just next year could go you know just Skyrocket you know um 1,000 this was when Tesla was under $400

right pre preit preit and so um you were like hey Tesla can go you know $1,000 $2,000 or whatever it's like what's your price where you will you know sell your

sh push you on that exactly right I'm like tell me number Dave yeah exactly I'm like I don't know you know what are you talking about right I'm like yeah I'm like oh I've got I don't want to pay taxes and I believe in this company Long

Term but you're like you're insistent on saying Dave what's the price right is it 1,000 you know 1500 2,000 right I'm like yeah th no way I don't

think I'll do 2,500 I don't know and then like 2,000 I'm like huh that sounds interesting right but it all depend like I guess at that time like on different

things right you know on um yeah what what I see in the future Etc um and the potential for Tesla but I'm curious like uh for you back then to see Tesla like

it's 300 something dollars pre-split and what is going through your mind at that time where you're like Whoa man this thing could just you know go

crazy because like I actually had a similar feeling too because I'm like this thing is like ready to pop you know especially with model y ramping profit

ramping Etc so I'm like you know this thing could go you know over a thousand you know in this next year and a thousand was like a lot you know because it was like 300 it's like this thing could triple but for you you were

thinking much bigger you're thinking 1500 2,000 or more what kind of got into your brain where you're like Whoa man this $300 stock could like you know do a

six or seven times in next year yeah great question I mean to be honest I feel like I've had that itch every year like hey this thing's going to go

up but the itch was getting stronger and stronger and then and and last year it was really strong and I was like you know I really think this is going to go up this year finally it's been five or six

years so I was I was pushing you on you know I started ask talking to people it's like this is the year like the model 3 is being prod model Y is you know coming out and you know and uh I

just thought like by the end of this year with the volumes they're doing that they'd be profitable the Chinese factor is going to be producing you know Full

Throttle and I just it just didn't to me all the dominoes were lined up just to be like wow shorts are going to get out they're going to realize like this is a game of musical chairs for them and you

know know lots of more people are going to want to buy and I also have this interesting theory that I always I feel like there's got to be some way to test it like maybe me and you can like one day come up with some way to like test

this but I feel like the more deliveries there are right just like when more people bought the Apple iPhone the more people were buying the Apple stock right and so the more deliveries there are of Teslas the more retail people and some

of these retail people might be portfolio managers for a big fund or something you know who knows and they're suddenly like wow I should buy some Tesla stock you know what I mean and so I just thought like this wave or this

tide of Tesla was getting more and more likely and that itch was really strong and I was like I'm going to set up this LLC I'm going to start buying leaps at the start of January 2nd as soon as I

fund the account and you know I'm going to save like 40 you know 40% in cash in case Tesla dips then I'll buy more leaps at a lower price but instead I bought the you know index puts at the right

time and got you know so a lot of opportunistic things happened for me this year I'm never going to have the type of return I had this year again I know that I'll regress to the mean but I still think my mean over the long term

is going to beat the market you know by a long shot um but yeah like it just felt like it was overdue you know it felt like 2013 all over again 2012 all

over again to me didn't it kind of feel like that to you like this year yeah definitely it was like one of those things where you know you had this five or six year just lull and suppression

yeah right and also media Onslaught right against Elon and the company like there was a time in 200 late 2018 or so where every single media Outlet I could

go on like it didn't matter like the political bent like it was literally every sing like CNN you go to CNN you go to Fox News MSNBC go you know whatever

any Outlet was negative for Elon right Elon was just front and center Tesla was front and center everything was negative and it was like um yeah it was like one

of those things where you had this amazing I think I call it a generational company where it's just it's the company's changing the world you know it just has the most amazing product

they're executing with their heads down yet the whole world is like ganging out up on this company and its founder and it's like when you're in it like for me it was just so obvious I'm like wow man

this is crazy like there is a media campaign or something someone is doing something you know to to do something against Tesla and um yeah and in some

ways it's just like that whole period of five or six five or six years just you know was a huge opportunity for people to you know build up their positions you

know gain conviction I think it was great in some ways because it tested a lot of people's convictions also you know in stock a lot of things happened yeah so you came out of it you know understanding the company company deeper

also seeing the the strengths and weaknesses of Elon you know as well it's like no one's perfect you know as well and you get to see some of the risks like some people you know they don't

they don't um they don't in a way see much risk with Tesla you know but I think for people who've gone through like lots of ups and downs and lots of

volatility who have you know lost a lot of money as well and you know gained Etc I think like at least for me personally I have this appreciation of the risks involved in

Tesla um and for any company like there's no company that's guaranteed you know there is an amount of risk and I think it's easy to Discount that risk because you're so bullish and you're

rightfully bullish on the company right they have amazing lead the future seems so clear but you know it's oftentimes not what it always appears to be like

like that's where I get a little bit cautious when everyone in the world um seems to be saying it's a done deal you know Tesla to5 trillion or something

there's no risk involved like I completely get it right I'm I'm a big bull I see like the you know highest likelihood chance 95% or higher chance

that Tesla just dominates right yeah but but we could be another fivey year long winter right stuck in this like 3 to 500 billion market cap range for another three or four years before it explodes

up again right you don't you know it could happen that's could be the Tesla's Mo you know just to do that every three or four years and and I'm prepared for that I'm in a good position now I'm holding mostly stock this time and some

deep in the money leaps still and yeah it could happen it might not might not even though all this great deliveries and production and efficiencies are coming they're outd doing earnings it's

possible the stock just might stay in this like if you talk talk stock price R it might stay I tell you know I told a bunch of people I think it could be in 350 to $450 range until the S&P

inclusion if that ever happens yeah yeah yeah I think um yeah I think in in a lot of ways like people get used to the The Climb so AIC you jumps from 1,000 and

2,000 this is preit price but people think like oh 3,000 4,000 you know it's coming up but yeah it's like often times it's it doesn't work like that you know it could work like that but there's

another angle where yeah there could be some macro issues you know there could be different things going on um yeah who knows there's a lot of things my my take

on Tesla right now like the um the key thing to watch right now is the S&P inclusion that's my take and that's been the key take for a while that's been the trade I've been waiting for not the

trade but that's what I've been waiting for to really like cash out of a small piece you know for some of the longer term shares I have I've been trying to wait for that because when that happens and I think there's a better than 50% chance it'll

happen this year but it doesn't mean it's going to happen maybe the S&P just puts their foot down and like we're not adding Tesla for whatever reason which would be terrible for them in the long

run yeah um and that could happen um but when S&P announces it the amount of index funds that have to buy Tesla

shares is just huge compared to the people willing to sell Tesla in my opinion you know and I think there's so many Buy and Hold Tesla people right now

that are just like I'm waiting till it's five trillion right and in market cap um and and so all these index funds are going to have to buy up within a month

or a few weeks or whatever you know they have and I think that could you know raise the price 50% maybe 100% pretty quickly you know probably not maybe but

it's going to be a big um potential Catalyst in my opinion and I'm trying to wait that out before I start selling the deep in the money covered calls but I feel like if I sell the 800 strikes which I think are the highest there are

I'm like afraid those are going to get called if uh if the S&P thing happens and like I don't want to lose out on that I'd rather sell the, 1500 or 1,00 strike calls when it's already at 800

yeah yeah yeah exactly I put out a video one of my first videos like was in or at least for kind of this new launch of my channel was December of last year where

I'm like hey S&P 500 you know uh we're gonna you know most likely get included you know next year in 2020 and you know I've been looking forward it to it's just so obvious right Tesla is like you

know making profits each that's that's the thing with Tesla it's like with each each new car new car lineup that they release their operating expenses are not increasing that much you know they're

just it's pretty much stable and so all of that margin just goes basically to operating profit and it makes Tesla into this hugely profitable you know company

a lot of people I don't think still they don't completely get that um but like yeah it's like you know it was obvious a year ago is like hey Tesla is going to

be very profitable know be eligible for S&P inclusion but this kind of whole thing of the S&P 500 kind of backing off not including this is kind of throwing me off a little bit because I was like

hey before it's like seemed pretty obvious this is like a large cap company yeah you know and it's like they're Gap profitable five quarters in a row now and it's like hey you know what's going

on it's all the Bears and misinformation that gets to that you know all the people like you and I talk to on the street or neighbors or friends who don't know much about it they just have bad Impressions I think it's overvalued the next tul looks Mania thing or whatever

and so the S&P committee I guess you know they're not super well informed yeah or they they're getting informed from certain people or groups of people right that that tell them like hey

there's regulatory income that shouldn't be included and blah blah BL blah you know all that stuff yeah yeah absolutely yeah yeah um yeah so interesting yeah definitely

interesting stuff um yeah uh this has been a great conversation just wanted to thank you for you know being open and sharing um about all your past and I

noticed like um you're saying how you know since you're transitioning from you know your old company now to starting a fund yourself now you've decided just to

become more open I guess with your you know uh finances or your you know your history and I think that's extremely helpful in a lot of ways like to actually see the numbers and to go

through your thought process Etc like personally actually like I think people would benefit more if I was more transparent actually if I actually shared exactly what I bought or how I

bought how much I bought like what I have because it gives context to some of the the things that I might be sharing about or I might be struggling with um

but like you know for me there's like I see that it could help people but then also I guess having that all out there it also carries some downsides too you know

yeah absolutely my wife is is is a pretty private individual who values that privacy you know and yeah um yeah just to have kind of everyone know like

you know what our net asset worth is ETC all that stuff it just kind of is a bit more complicated and more exposure than we want um but I don't know I guess in your case have you wrestled through

those issues and are absolutely what have you come with you know there was this uh publication called like hedge fund alert that's it

did a their first piece on me starting a hedge fund a week ago they published it and I thought about going into that piece like am I going to put my the numbers the metrics of my you know how much money I'm going to start this Fone

you know all that stuff I you know and I just decided like you know transparency is usually better in my opin in my way in finance you know um

if I'm going to do a finance business which is what I'm doing like if you get to a certain size like people know like you know if you're a successful hedge fund manager any of the successful hedge funds out there like you know the person

who found it or runs it it's like worth x amount of money you know and uh you know I hope to get there one day you know um but if not it's okay I'll manage my own money and hopefully not lose it

all on Tesla but I could go back to work worst case you know um so I wrestled with it and uh I just realized you know

this is a finance uh investing media I'm not going to publish this stuff on Facebook or you know public forums that's not Finance related but for

finance related uh uh news or Publications or whatever I think it's it's probably okay and uh people appreciate I think transparency on that

stuff yeah yeah definitely I agree um yeah so um where can people find you um you're on Twitter I'm actually following you what's your handle it's just my full

name EMT peppers uh kind of unique just Emme last name is Peppers uh p p p RS so emit Peppers that's my Twitter handle um

but more importantly I have this uh firm uh I call I I just founded called good soil Investment Management um and so

goodsoil investment.com uh if you go to that website and you want to learn more about this fund I'm setting up I'm going to have a marketing deck in the next week or two ready uh I can if you put

your email address in I'll you to it it's a 506c hedge fund which is a little different most hedge funds are not a 506c hedge fund that means I can Market it to the public but I can only accept

CR credit investors obviously um but at least I can show my performance and talk to the public about it so I hope to post some some good stuff on that website in the future so goodsoil investment.com

okay goodsoil investment.com and um yeah basically only open to accredited investors um and then your fund um I'm guessing you're sharing with me privately that

it's I guess your approach is are you going to continue to take kind of your more higher risk kind of you know trading approach with this fund yeah I mean that's another reason it's you know

credit investors because it is pretty high risk right I mean it's so far this year it's like 50x return plus you know and and uh there's a lot of risk in that

right so I want to make clear to investors that you know the investment could go to zero you know but you could also get 50x return I mean I'm never going to have this type of year again I want to make sure people

know that like well actually you shouldn't say never because yeah I mean you know possible the probabilities are you know you might not have especially maybe in the like um near future but who

knows down the road who knows what will happen don't it yeah people shouldn't expect it I like the like I have a similar investing strategy I think you've talked about is that I look for investment opportunities that I think

could return 10x or more and I think there's a 20% chance or more of that happen in I'll make that bet and a lot of times if it doesn't happen it turns to zero but that's okay is if I get 20% of them right I have a good return right

so I'm trying to make that investment opportunity set more than just Tesla although that's my highest conviction name and I used options and derivative exchange share derivatives to to find

those investment opportunities you know whether it's index puts for the Q for the NASDAQ nickel up puts which I failed on the timing with you know uh Square

option calls which worked out well I think um so that's the the the investment strategy is trying to get 10x or more Returns on each investment decision got

it um yeah and then you're putting your own money into it right have you decided like a range about yet or yeah yeah I mean I I think right now it's you know I

put in the 100,000 worth the fund itself is like 5.7 million or something like that uh and so that's that's already a nice amount but I think I'm G to put an extra for my personal account an extra

maybe 10 to 15 or something in there you know I can transfer stock you know uh with the cost bases in tax I don't to pay taxes which is nice I it would be

hard to do then put money in but because I can just transfer shares in and then pay taxes down the road when I sell the the stocks or Securities so yeah I'm probably putting more of my personal

account into it as well and it might not be quite as aggressive as it's been to date but it's going to be aggressive yeah yeah yeah like um one thing I do like appreciate about your approach is

like you're putting your own money into it you know like some other people might be like hey I I made all these gains and now I'm just gonna put them aside and start a fund with you know other

people's money and make money off of management and not have I guess skin in the game but I think you know your approach um putting skin in the game um especially you know let's say high-risk

you know Approach at least like you know if things don't go well you know you you take the biggest loss you know in a

sense um absolutely yeah yeah so um yeah definitely yeah I mean my previous job was selling to uh hedge funds startup hedge funds A lot of times and and and

so yeah I saw a lot of that where hedge fund managers are a seed investor seeding them with you know x million and a little bit of their money and some hedge funds start with their own money

and yeah so I saw a variety of strategies and and and um most hedge funds fail and shut down within a couple years and so I I know that's a realistic

possibility here um but I want to give it my best shot all right what's your um do you have a long-term Vision like five or 10 years what do you want to what do you want to be doing what do you want

your is say your fund to be doing or yeah what do you envision yeah great question yeah so that's that's what's inspired me to move forward with the hedge fund is this Vision I have of it

being more than just making money for myself you know most hedge funds have this fee structure of 2% annual management fee 2% of the assets as a fee

and then 20% of the performance so that's the standard they call two and 20 fee structure for hedge funds so what I'm trying to do is is um I'm still going to charge that structure to the

investors that fee structure but I'm putting the perspectus of the hedge fund that half of the fees go to charity through a foundation I'm stting up right so and I want to be also transparent

about the foundation like if this takes off I'm going to treat the foundation and the donations to charity very seriously almost as serious or more serious than my investing decisions you

know um and so if in five or 10 years I I would hope I would love if this fund was so successful that maybe gener it

it it starts a trend and inspires a whole new breed of investment managers to do something similar sort of like ESG investing has has become a real Trend

you know maybe there could be like a charitable giving aspect with investment managers now that investors look for you know and and it'll be a trend and

capitalism has gotten not such a great name with young people lately you know and the most capitalistic thing you could think of as hedge funds in a way right so maybe this could reverse some of that perspect perspective a little

bit all right sounds good wish you the best man thanks for yeah taking the time out to chat and um yeah we'll talk to you later man all right thanks Dave appreciate this allot and uh we'll stay in touch yeah all right see you emit all

right bye all right bye all right I hope that chat was helpful it's been a blast personally to chat with people like EMT and others and to share these conversations with you as well if this video has been helpful I encourage you

to like it and to consider subscribing to my channel I've got some really interesting and fascinating interviews ahead as well in this channel we're looking at investment topics and the world from different angles trying to

use independent thinking to get beneath the surface of things I'm on Twitter at hey Dave S and we'll see you in my next video thanks