What is it all about, Alfie? For Charlie Goodman, it was never only about the money. A lunch at the Petroleum Club in Denver made his point better than any lecture.
Charlie Had “Made His”
By the time I met Charles Goodman he sometimes would say, not boasting, “I’ve made mine,” and was comfortable. He traded because he enjoyed the activity. I’ve said before, I believe discretionary trading to be a very healthy mental exercise, lighting up different parts of the brain.
In the 1970s there was a big oil boom in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain states. Big money was being made. Deals were often done in large quantities of cash, $100 bills. Charlie often chafed at the show of greed and excess from some of the oil men. No problem with making money, but don’t make a big deal of it, please!
SIDEBAR: Cash WAS king in those days, before Osama bin Laden, Dodd and Frank. I used to go to the satellite office of the United Bank of Denver and cash $20,000 to $30,000 checks from penny stock deals. I’d get a smile, a “Thank you!” and “Have a nice day, Mr. Archer!” as the money was counted out to me. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t all mine! We had huis of three, four and five traders.
Lunch at the Petroleum Club
Charlie’s pal (and mine) Jerry Peters, a top broker at Bache & Company, had a membership to the swank Petroleum Club. This helped keep him informed, for his clients, of what was hot and what was not in the industry. At the top of the Petroleum Club building was a large, swank dining room. I think there was also a gym and lounge on the same floor, but I never saw those.
One day Jerry invited me and Charlie to have lunch at the Club. Charlie was not too keen; as I said, the ostentatious display of wealth did not sit too well with him. But we went. The lunch room was crowded and noisy. You could literally feel the energy in the room. Tables of men talking big deals in the oil and gas business! At the table next to us, one of the men pulled out a briefcase and opened it: full of $100 bills. Another fellow at the table reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a bulging fistful of the same.
They shuffled the money around (you get this, you get that), counting stacks and stacks of bills.
Make a Little, Give a Little
Charlie looked askance at it all and almost winced. Then he whispered to me, “They believe they will take that money to Heaven! Do you save your poop in a bag when you go on vacation?” I smiled. Then he looked directly at me and said, “Dad, when you make yours, please don’t be like that! Make a little, give a little.”
I hope you win in the markets as a trader! But win or lose, you’re not taking it with you. Keep some perspective. Excessive quantities of money can be addictive, and toxic, to humans.
Good Trading!
Michael Duane Archer
Related Reading
- Father’s Day: Charlie Goodman, My Second Father
- Akiko, Wittgenstein and Charlie: Serendipity in the Markets
Keep Learning the Goodman Way
If this article was useful, these are the next steps:
- The Method: propagation, intersection and the 3-C Principle, drawn plate by plate.
- The Goodman Library: the books, from Goodman for Grasshoppers to The Goodman 6 & 6.
- The Trader’s Playbook: the Molokai setup in one printed, numbered volume.
- Mentoring: work one-on-one with the authors.