I had a great week working with Andrew as a Stock Trader. He was nice enough to welcome me into his home in Weston, Florida, lend me his trading secrets, and not to mention introduce me to an amazing game on XBOX called Guitar Hero 3.

On my last day, I thought I was getting a pretty good handle on things; I was reading the charts, predicting where the stock was going to go, deciding on what would be good buy and sell points. I was getting the hang of it, and was getting a little confident. Just as I did, I learned a very valuable lesson: no matter how many models and techniques you have to help you predict what direction the stock should go, the bottom line is that the stock market is unpredictable.

The stock that I was watching was Crocs - the shoe company. It was a bad day on the market overall and the stock was down, I thought for sure that it was a good buy point and asked Andrew if I could purchase 500 shares at $38. He said sure. The stock began to look positive and then it starting going down, and down. Andrew asked if I was going to just sit and watch it go progressively lower, saying that you must decide on a point where you have to cut your loses. I felt really bad. All of a sudden it wasn’t so easy, and then I did a quick calculation of 500 x $38 and realized I was dealing with some serious money.

We sold it down $2 a share and the stock continued to go down. So much so that Andrew thought this was getting ridiculous and that it had to come back up, so he went back in for 2000 shares. As soon as he did, the stock started to climb quickly. I felt like I was cheering on the home team watching that stock rise and urging it to push further. Then it was time to rush out the door, speed to the airport, do a tv interview at the airport as I was checking in, and then barely make it to my plane - pretty exciting. In the end, we ended up $5000 in the plus for the day and a valuable lesson learned.

Next week I am heading to Brooklyn, NY where I will be a Baker in Brooklyn. If you are in the area and want to meet up, let me know.

-Sean

My first two days working as a Stock Trader with Horowitz & Company have been exciting. I find that I have more energy at this job, even though I haven’t been getting all that much sleep.

The stock market is action packed, there is so much at stake, and Andrew wasn’t kidding when he said it’s 0 - 120 in 1 minute with him. Over the past two days we have traded about $1.75 million in a day-trading style and have total net profits of $5,500.

Although necessary to be a good investor, it can be difficult to leave the emotion out of it. I found it is easy to get wrapped up in the excitement of the market movements. And of course when this happens, we begin to make poor decisions. Andrew set me up with a computer screen with the live trading program installed so that I can see everything that is happening in real time and make real trades. He would tell me to buy a certain amount at a price, and I would buy, he would tell me to sell and I would sell. The stocks we are trading move quick so there is a pressure to type the price and number of shares and click the “sell” or “buy” button as fast as I can. Hoping that I didn’t make a typo in the process and that I heard Andrew correctly.

At about 1pm yesterday, it was my turn. Andrew allowed me to trade 3000 shares that he purchased earlier in the day. It was completely up to me to decide when to stay in, how much to pull out, and watch the trend of the stock to see where I thought it was going. I watched that stock as if my life depended on it. Trying to figure out where it would go, selling some when I thought it was a good price and holding on when I thought it would rise.

It was pretty intense watching the stock go above our purchase price and then dip below to as much as $0.10. I think I did a pretty good job and made some good decisions. The trades averaged to be up about $0.12 a share to make a total of $300 profits, which was donated by Andrew to The ONE Campaign.

I do enjoy the excitement of the markets, though I am not sure I could handle all the ups and downs on a daily basis. It requires tough nerves, discipline, and the ability to recover quickly after a big loss or a big gain.

Andrew is a great guy and I am learning lots about the market from him. He balances out managing portfolios with a bunch of other things that he is into, such as a weekly podcast, photography, and he just recently finished writing a book called “The Disciplined Investor.”

He talked about our last couple of days in his blog that will give you a more technical idea of what we have been up to.

-Sean

Here’s Sean’s experience working at SnorgTees in Atlanta, GA. Enjoy!

This week I will be working as a Stock Trader with Horowitz & Company - Investment Management and Financial Planning. Horowitz & Company is an Investment Advisory firm specializing in Asset Allocation. “We utilize Strategic and Tactical strategies to help reduce portfolio risk and at the same time attempting to maintain the overall return potential.”

While I was in college, the stock market really excited me and I thought for a time that I would get my trading license and become a stock broker. I have spoken with Andrew Horowitz, the president of the company, several times over the past week and I have no doubt that it will be an action packed week. It seems that he has a million things going on, and is always on the go. I asked him yesterday over the phone how many hours a week he works. He laughed, and said, “You don’t want to know.”

This was also my first One Week Job that I had homework before coming into the week. Andrew asked me to make a list of the stocks that will have earnings for Monday and Tuesday and find out what are the important items that will be reported regarding economics. He said, “After you do this, I will then show you what really matters.”

I am really excited for this week and have no doubt that I will learn lots. In Andrew’s words, “it’s 0-120 in 1 minute with me. Strap in…!”

Here we go!

-Sean