Friday night story time!

This is the story of my Robinhood hedge fund and got into markets, for better or for worse.

I call it “Thousands” (Season 1)

I, too, am played by Cristian Bale.

It’s summer 2017, I had just finished my freshman year as a sport management student at Syracuse University. I have no idea what I want to do.

I work for the summer for someone on the SU board on a fintech startup. Details not important but I get a $1000 check from this.

One night that August me and my friends are sitting around the pool shooting the shit and for some reason we start talking about hedge funds. Something I knew knotting about.

We decided (incorrectly) that average fund returns of 20% were paltry given the focus and resources.

I flippantly (drunkenly) say “I could beat 20% in a few months”

One of my friends jumps out of his chair saying “lmao no you cannot” so I told him I’m gonna put that check into markets and let’s bet $100 on it.

One of our other friends - and I’ll never forget this - backs me.

At first I told him match me 1k for 1k and he can use my equity to cover his losses if I get 50% of his earnings over 20% ($200 hurdle lol).

We go to the bank bc we think we’re big shots and he asks me if I’d consider taking 2k of his on the same terms.

I reluctantly agree.

So I load up our big $3,000 book into robinhood right around the time they release rh gold, which doubled buying power for $10/mo or something... obviously I’m taking that lol. You needed $2k minimum so I felt wealthy.

We start slow.

I buy $MU on a dip at $29 sell at $31.

I was happy to be up so far, sending my friend (and the one we made the bet with) updates at open, close, and noon. They’re small, +$25, but it’s something.

Anyway, I soon realize that buying big name stocks is not going to help me win my 20% bet unless I hit every single one.

Being 19 and new to markets I stupidly think that low per share prices were a form of implicit leverage (they ain’t) and look for stocks >$5 in tech industries. QQQ was at $142 for context.

I come across a company - actually it was the name that got me - you may have heard of it

Helios and Matheson ~Analytics~ $HMNY was trading at $2.25 a share, up from $2 earlier in the year and I figured, lol what’s the worst that can happen here?!

Buy 200 shares and it moves to $2.40. That was our biggest day to day so far lol. I buy another 200 or so.

I start looking into the company and find out through Stocktwits (thank you @howardlindzon lol) that the comoany owned a chunk of an interesting startup called Moviepass, which was supposed to be Netflix for theaters.

Cool, there might be something to this I think. Moves to $3.

So now at this point we’re up like 15% overall and HMNY is doing 4% here 6% there and my reports to my partner are getting better and better. We’re close to winning the bet.

By now I’m so bored of big name stocks I sell out of all of them and put half into $HMNY. 1000 @ 2.71.

Moves to $5. We’re up like 100% overall. It’s now mid September and I’m back at Cuse and telling my friend were making a few hundred bucks a day on this.

At this point I actually begin pledging a fraternity... which made that process very interesting lol.

They loved it obv.

This is where things start to get really crazy and I actually try to figure out what the hell is going on here. I remember reading somewhere that the stock could be part of a short squeeze... I needed to know what this meant.

The volleyball underwater analogy got me hooked.

Anyway, at this point it’s our only holding and we’ve got like 1500 shares at $4 basis or something. Already beyond doubled our money and won the bet. Stock jumps to $7 and then $10 and next thing you know me - a 19 year old degenerate - created $15k out of nowhere.

From $10, $15 and $20 fell rather quickly. Stock cut through uncharted waters like a hot knife. Squeeze was in full effect. Thing is doing 30% a day with no signs of stopping. We’re making a few thousand a day. I’m not going to class lmao and when I do, I make sure everyone sees.

I think the move from 20-28 happened overnight and I’m starting to hear rumors about a Goldman Sachs ipo at $100 (lmao) and start dreaming and planning vacations and all that good shit. Then came the day it peaked.

10/11/17 stock opened around 30 and ran to a high of 38.80.

Our account is worth like $50k and remember - the deal was I take 50% of his earnings over $400 so I’m up 30 large.

I just remember sitting in the frat house dreaming of the W South Beach

Stock closed with a red shooting star candle. I had no clue what that was but I was like:

This one stock had basically changed my life from sport management kid to frat house fat cat and I wasn’t about to run away from it. Stock is red the next day. And the next day. Accounts back down under $30k I panic (rightfully) and sell around $24. +1000% still pretty damn good.

At this time im also doing some pretty - uh unsavory - things by night so I reluctantly close out the position, count up the cash, and begin plotting next moves.

We quite quickly and soundly beat our benchmark (the bet) so I tell my friend instead of giving me $100 how about...

You give me an investment and the three of us start a micro hedge fund and try to get some others on board as well. He is absolutely stunned and agrees and adds a nice number to our AUM. Then we start recruiting anyone and everyone we know who might be into it

We get a few bites

The three of us spend the next two weeks writing emails, making decks, and talking to friends about what in the hell just transpired that now we have like $25,000 to trade with out of nowhere.

We end up raising about another $15 or $20k I think to bring aum to around $40k.

I have LITERALLY NO IDEA WHAT IM DOING lmfao and get all of the funds into an E*TRADE account - it was time to step it up - and just think to myself: “holy fuck what now?”

I wrote up a prospectus” and I think it said we were gonna use the 3x daily tech bull as an investment lmao

I think the ut also said something about a 2/20 structure, redemption gating, and set up a crudely designed share class so we could keep track of personal positions (actually smart)

It also gave me absolute control so I take full responsibility of what happens from here...

Twitter will only let me do 25 tweets in a precomposed thread so let’s call this the season 1 finale:

Before we started recruiting outside capital (kids our age lol) we needed a name...

Me and my Cuse friends that weren’t involved came up with some really funny ones.

Names I won’t put here for a variety of reasons but my home friends (partners) thought we should do something conservative so people would take us seriously.

I’m not looking for a fight so I agree.

We jokingly call our group chat “Greymont Capital Partners”

I shit you not this actually happened:

One of them was in class and I guess a kid sitting next to him reaches in and excitedly whispers “you work for Greymont Capital Partners?!?! That’s sick!”

And so, Greymont Capital Partners was born and my path to where I am today begins.

Btw there are many “episodes” from this time period which I cannot share here because this ain’t HBO and I’m poor so I need a career. Imagine sophomore year of college with effectively unlimited money and ego.

Use your imaginations lmao.

My god I wish I could share the photos/vids... but I cannot lol