I’m a former sell side equity analyst. I spent just over 10 years on Bay Street in Toronto covering tech stocks at Yorkton Securities, which later became Orion Securities, until I moved to TD Securities in 2004. I left TD in January 2011 to take a “mini retirement” inspired by Tim Ferriss’ book, The Four Hour Work Week.
Prior to being a tech analyst I was an engineer for Nortel Networks, and before that, JDSU (ok, actually this was pre JDSU. It was still JDS Fitel at the time). When I was working at JDSU I had absolutely no clue what optical components did. I just knew the company was making a killing selling them. When I moved over to Nortel I started to understand more about the components and the networks they were being deployed in. I got to work on a lot of really cool projects at Nortel, and the most important “stuff” I learned was about how big companies manage product development.
As a technology analyst and investor, my style is different from what drives Wall St. and Bay St. I tend to focus on longer term trends rather than short term trading opportunities. If anything, I like to take advantage of short term volatility when I believe that the movement goes against the long term value of a stock.
I believe that you make money as an investor by figuring out what the “market” believes (as an average) and then deciding when the market is making a huge mistake in its long term thinking. This means being willing to swallow big volatility and periods of being wrong on some battles, to still come out as a winner in the war.