Part 3 (Buying Low and Selling High)You see, I first started making significant amounts of money, in 1998, when I was 16 years old. And what happened was, I was a tennis player, and I wanted to sell one of my old, beat up, and used tennis rackets. I offered it to a friend, but he didn’t want to buy it, but what that friend told me changed my life forever. He said: “Why don’t you try to sell it on ebay”. At that time, I had no idea what ebay was, in fact I had very little idea about internet in general. All I used internet for was to go to AOL chat rooms, trying to pick up girls. As I got older, I now realize that most of those girls were probably old, fat men, probably wearing suits and glasses, but anyway….so I went to ebay for the very first time, I opened an account, I figured out how to post my tennis racket, and I started thinking of a price to put it at. Since I bought it on sale two years ago for something like $55, I decided to put $35 as price for it. So I put up a 7 day auction, and the racket ended up selling for $67. I was shocked. So being kind of a little young, dumb, and naïve, I thought…”Well…if I bought this racket for $55 two years ago, I beat the crap out of that racket, and now somebody was willing to buy it for $67, why don’t I go to a store, and see how much new rackets will sell for.” So I did. I bought two types of cheap rackets at retail prices, in a regular sports store. I paid $19.99+tax for one, and $29.99+tax for the other. I put them up on ebay, and they sold for around $65, and $75 respectively. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I received checks in the mail for them, because back then, almost nobody paid and accepted credit cards for ebay items.
Back then I hardly had any money. I was living by myself in Los Angeles, USA. My mother was sending me money from Russia for rent and food, so at any given time, I was lucky to have a couple of hundred dollars of available money. And those couple of hundred were meant to be for food. I had no car, I had to get everywhere by a bicycle, but the sports store wasn’t far, it was only about 3 miles away, so what I started doing, is I started listing these tennis rackets in massive quantities. I put $49.99 for the one that cost $19.99, and I put $59.99 that cost me $29.99, and I was putting up several auctions every day, starting with $1. And people were buying these rackets for crazy prices. I couldn’t throw enough into this ebay animal. So I started having very nice cashflow, I would keep little to no inventory, every week, I was shipping out dozens of these tennis rackets, bicycling from the sports store, to my house, then again biking to the post office, packaging everything, and mailing it. I started making thousands of dollars per month, didn’t need anymore money from my mother, in fact I started offering money to her. Imagine, being 16 years old, living by yourself, making more money than your friends’ parents, doing something so stupidly simple…buying tennis rackets from your local store at retail prices, and reselling them on ebay. I thought I was given a right to print free money. All the time, the store I was buying from had inventory problems, they wouldn’t have enough of these rackets, so I had to go to other stores, or make my customers wait. Plus it was a hassle bicycling all the time with all this metal on my back. Every time I had to do a mailing, or shopping, I had to make several trips back and forth. And few miles back and forth, is a lot of biking.
So that’s where I learned first the power of buying low and selling high, same as we have in forex. And as you can see, it was a very logical and simple process. I know you may not appreciate these stories at this point, and you may think, Felix, what a heck does this have to do with forex trading systems, and making money in forex? Believe me…it has everything to do with forex and trading systems. Let me continue with my story, and at the end I’ll tie it all together into a very nice and practical lesson, that will tie in very nicely with the forex trading system that I currently use.
Part 4 (Picking The Right Forex Style)So let me continue my story… So as I was selling these tennis rackets, I started thinking that there probably has to be a better way of doing it. Perhaps I could find smaller items to sell, that could conveniently be shipped to me, and I don’t have to bike to stores. And perhaps those items could be smaller, so that it’s easier to transport them on my bicycle to a post office. So I thought of brand name watches. I went online, and through some research, the same day, I found a supplier of closeouts of brand name watches in another state. Because these were mostly store returns, the prices were dirt cheap. I knew nothing about watches at that time, so I asked this supplier for a breakdown of models and prices. The guy was from Texas, and I think he figured out that he was dealing with a kid, so it was very difficult getting anything out of him, he would hang up on me all the time, because he thought I was just wasting his time. So what I had to do was I had to call him, and I asked him for his bank account information, because I wanted to send him a wire for $5,000, and after he had this money, I wanted him to talk to me in details about what he had, because I wanted to buy. After he got the $5K, he became a lot more interested, and I became one of his biggest accounts, I bought well over a $1 million dollars worth of stuff from him over the next few years. But basically this watch business was even a bigger gold mine than tennis rackets. What I would do is get a price list of available models and prices, then I would go to ebay, and search ebay’s completed items, I would see the prices of what similar watches sold for before, and based on that, I made a decision of what to buy. And this is a very important point that I will tie into my forex trading system conversation with you later. I was only buying, when I knew that I could sell it for more money later. And I had a process or a system that I was using in order to identify the items that I could literally buy low and sell high. There is also something important to learn in this story, is the way I initially sent money to this guy. Overall, in my few years of doing business on ebay, I have literally been screwed for over $100,000 worth of money. I have paid money to fake companies, I have lent money to very reliable personal friends that never gave it back, and I have been screwed by some very reliable suppliers, even after doing a lot of business with them. I put one guy into prison, though I never got any money back, I just wasted time to go through the legal process of doing it, and I forgave the debts to most others. This is a very important point, especially when it comes to forex. Every time you give your money to a forex broker, there is a relatively high chance that your funds are not safe. The broker may have the best intentions, but because of the way the forex industry is set up, they have full access to your funds, and if they have bad money management skills, and they use their clients’ money for marketing, hoping to get even more clients, at the end of the day, they may go under, and you can kiss your money bye, bye. But going back to this story. What was the biggest lesson? Yes, my initial business was selling on ebay, but I decided to pick a different niche that fit my lifestyle better. Don't you think it applies to the forex business? Of course it does, and it can make all the difference in your life! I personally really hate sitting in front of my computer several hours at a time, waiting for trading opportunities. That's why I decided to focus on a little bit different style, and that's trading the news. So I come in at a specific time, see the news, make a trade, or not make a trade, and leave. You may not like this style, and if you don't, pick another niche in forex that you will like. Like exclusively trading the first 4 hours of the London Session from 1:00 am to 5:00 am NY Time, or the New York Session from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm NY Time, or Asian Session from 6 pm to 11 pm NY Time. You must enjoy the process. What you focus on, expands.
Back then I hardly had any money. I was living by myself in Los Angeles, USA. My mother was sending me money from Russia for rent and food, so at any given time, I was lucky to have a couple of hundred dollars of available money. And those couple of hundred were meant to be for food. I had no car, I had to get everywhere by a bicycle, but the sports store wasn’t far, it was only about 3 miles away, so what I started doing, is I started listing these tennis rackets in massive quantities. I put $49.99 for the one that cost $19.99, and I put $59.99 that cost me $29.99, and I was putting up several auctions every day, starting with $1. And people were buying these rackets for crazy prices. I couldn’t throw enough into this ebay animal. So I started having very nice cashflow, I would keep little to no inventory, every week, I was shipping out dozens of these tennis rackets, bicycling from the sports store, to my house, then again biking to the post office, packaging everything, and mailing it. I started making thousands of dollars per month, didn’t need anymore money from my mother, in fact I started offering money to her. Imagine, being 16 years old, living by yourself, making more money than your friends’ parents, doing something so stupidly simple…buying tennis rackets from your local store at retail prices, and reselling them on ebay. I thought I was given a right to print free money. All the time, the store I was buying from had inventory problems, they wouldn’t have enough of these rackets, so I had to go to other stores, or make my customers wait. Plus it was a hassle bicycling all the time with all this metal on my back. Every time I had to do a mailing, or shopping, I had to make several trips back and forth. And few miles back and forth, is a lot of biking.
So that’s where I learned first the power of buying low and selling high, same as we have in forex. And as you can see, it was a very logical and simple process. I know you may not appreciate these stories at this point, and you may think, Felix, what a heck does this have to do with forex trading systems, and making money in forex? Believe me…it has everything to do with forex and trading systems. Let me continue with my story, and at the end I’ll tie it all together into a very nice and practical lesson, that will tie in very nicely with the forex trading system that I currently use.
Part 4 (Picking The Right Forex Style)So let me continue my story… So as I was selling these tennis rackets, I started thinking that there probably has to be a better way of doing it. Perhaps I could find smaller items to sell, that could conveniently be shipped to me, and I don’t have to bike to stores. And perhaps those items could be smaller, so that it’s easier to transport them on my bicycle to a post office. So I thought of brand name watches. I went online, and through some research, the same day, I found a supplier of closeouts of brand name watches in another state. Because these were mostly store returns, the prices were dirt cheap. I knew nothing about watches at that time, so I asked this supplier for a breakdown of models and prices. The guy was from Texas, and I think he figured out that he was dealing with a kid, so it was very difficult getting anything out of him, he would hang up on me all the time, because he thought I was just wasting his time. So what I had to do was I had to call him, and I asked him for his bank account information, because I wanted to send him a wire for $5,000, and after he had this money, I wanted him to talk to me in details about what he had, because I wanted to buy. After he got the $5K, he became a lot more interested, and I became one of his biggest accounts, I bought well over a $1 million dollars worth of stuff from him over the next few years. But basically this watch business was even a bigger gold mine than tennis rackets. What I would do is get a price list of available models and prices, then I would go to ebay, and search ebay’s completed items, I would see the prices of what similar watches sold for before, and based on that, I made a decision of what to buy. And this is a very important point that I will tie into my forex trading system conversation with you later. I was only buying, when I knew that I could sell it for more money later. And I had a process or a system that I was using in order to identify the items that I could literally buy low and sell high. There is also something important to learn in this story, is the way I initially sent money to this guy. Overall, in my few years of doing business on ebay, I have literally been screwed for over $100,000 worth of money. I have paid money to fake companies, I have lent money to very reliable personal friends that never gave it back, and I have been screwed by some very reliable suppliers, even after doing a lot of business with them. I put one guy into prison, though I never got any money back, I just wasted time to go through the legal process of doing it, and I forgave the debts to most others. This is a very important point, especially when it comes to forex. Every time you give your money to a forex broker, there is a relatively high chance that your funds are not safe. The broker may have the best intentions, but because of the way the forex industry is set up, they have full access to your funds, and if they have bad money management skills, and they use their clients’ money for marketing, hoping to get even more clients, at the end of the day, they may go under, and you can kiss your money bye, bye. But going back to this story. What was the biggest lesson? Yes, my initial business was selling on ebay, but I decided to pick a different niche that fit my lifestyle better. Don't you think it applies to the forex business? Of course it does, and it can make all the difference in your life! I personally really hate sitting in front of my computer several hours at a time, waiting for trading opportunities. That's why I decided to focus on a little bit different style, and that's trading the news. So I come in at a specific time, see the news, make a trade, or not make a trade, and leave. You may not like this style, and if you don't, pick another niche in forex that you will like. Like exclusively trading the first 4 hours of the London Session from 1:00 am to 5:00 am NY Time, or the New York Session from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm NY Time, or Asian Session from 6 pm to 11 pm NY Time. You must enjoy the process. What you focus on, expands.
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