Over the years, I have come to know several hundred maybe thousands of people of which many have had no influence on me. Out of all of them, I only recollect maybe a hundred or two of them. Actually, my job, a high school teacher, requires me to see and work with around a hundred new faces, that are replenished each year. Considering my plethora of years of teaching, that is quite a lot of students. While it is not necessarily the fault of the students for not being interesting enough (many of them are fine respectable likeable people), most students only stay in my memory maybe a few years due to the sheer number of students I have had over my tens of years teaching. This in itself has convinced me of the inexhaustible variety of life. After all, in my young and vulnerable years, my father had given me some lasting advice to never judge people critically. As a result, I have never mentally dismissed anyone away intentionally. It just so happens that only a few can make it into my limited memory. In any case, in just the last year, I have met just a few people whom have had a lasting impression on me that will most likely never be forgotten. One of them was Z— K—.

Every year, on the first day of the school year, I am entrusted the responsibility of accepting classes of new, mostly fresh faces. Like most other teachers, I hand out an "icebreaker" activity and ask them to let me know something about themselves. It is fairly routine and occasionally I find out some interesting stuff about my students but just last September, when I was looking through the stack, I saw something unprecedented. It said "Is your 401(k), retirement fund, investment portfolio heading south? Well, I can turn that around for you." I laughed a little and glanced back to the top of the paper with the name, questioning who made this somewhat bold declaration. It was "Z— K— ", an IB student. I decided then that I should at the very least see if he was serious or this was just another jokingly answered response. After all, many of these were statements made in jest.

The eight period bell rang. A swarm of students flooded in, into their seats, logging into their computer accounts. By the second bell, I had taken a quick cursory glance across the room trying to find where the source of this unique bold declaration sat. Remembering that he was an IB student, I walked over to the row where all my gregarious IB students sat, asked them if they were all IB, mentioned how they had always done fantastic in this class, and ventured to asked the student who I remembered to be the student who had answered to the name "Z— K—" at roll call if he indeed was serious about the whole investment portfolio shebang.

He looked at me as if I had asked him whether he was real or not, smiling broadly with beaming eyes and responded "Of course!". His surrounding friends all jerked their heads toward us, focusing just on what he and I said, awaiting my response. I then proceeded to tell him that I indeed was interested in hearing what he had to say and that I had actually been attracted to the idea of finally putting some money into the stock market though frankly I knew little about how the stock market worked. I had only invested in real estate with my few investment properties, as well as my mutual funds, CDs, and other low-risk investments. Yet all the news about the rebounding stock market piqued my interest. As I spoke, he sloped his head toward me with his eyes fixated at me, albeit occasionally glancing at his screen, pulled up his portfolio online and tilted the screen so I could see. He went on to agree with everything I said, smiling understandingly. In fact, now that I think about it in retrospect, it was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it. It seemed to concentrate on me with an irresistible prejudice in my favor. It understood me just as far as I wanted to be understood, believed in me as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that you had gotten over the exact impression that you wished you had.

And with that perfect salesman countenance, he went on to pitch to me his respectable so-called ‘market correction strategy’ to which he attributed to his impressive virtual track performance. Within seconds I realized that he had transcended into a different world in which I had never entered but yet his confidence, his timbre, his tone welcomingly guided me in. He conveyed to me the extreme level of familiarity he had and his depth of knowledge with words of lucidity that invited me in. He agreed with me where I wanted to be agreed on, and enlightened me where I wanted to enlightened, and when he went too deep, he would gyroscopically readjust the conversation to maintain my slightly waning interest. I thanked him for the information, expressed my genuine interest and told him I would bring it up in my upcoming appointment with my father's financial advisor. I then returned to my desk somewhat shocked at resumed working on the Photoshop project that I was demonstrating to the class.

For the next few weeks, when Z— walked into class, he would walk up to my desk right before class started and tell me an interesting fact of the day. His facts often pertained to something financial or corporate related, but not always. Day by day, he won over any doubts I might have had over his credibility and I was convinced of his comprehensive understanding of all things money. As a matter of fact, I kind of looked forward to his fact of the day.

A couple of weeks after my initial conversation with Z— where I expressed my interest, I finally met my financial advisor. To my surprise, my financial advisor informed me that he personally found stock picking too risky and that he would not recommend any stock nor would he advise that I pick it myself. At that very moment, I came to a decision that I would seriously consider any stock tips from Z—. I was already set for retirement thanks to my teacher's pension, my considerable cash reserves, and my few profitable investment properties -I might as well.

Within a month or two, Z— had came into class one Friday bursting in with a specific stock pitch. The thoroughness of his research which led to his buy recommendation strongly indicated his seriousness, professionalism, and fitness. He went on to charismatically give me a full-on pitch, stopping every once in a while to make sure I was following and understood the terminology. He then proceeded to tell me that he would send me an email with further details.
His reasons went from technical mispricing of the stock to more fundamental aspects. EPS, growth of the company and the industry, IPO price, refinancing maturing debt, the terms went on and on. A little overloaded with information, I took a step back and mentally mapped out what was going on. After a few moments, I decided that I would find out more about how this kid had developed such an unique enthusiastic passion for Wall Street.

The following day right after we had saved our progress on a Photoshop project and kids were awaiting the dismissal bell, I walked over to the site of the gregarious IB students and amidst our conversation, I asked "Z—, how did you come to learn about all of this Wall Street stuff?".

He shrugged and replied, "Just a lot of reading, I suppose."

"All of this from just reading? What started all of this?"

He looked appraisingly at me and I could only assume that he was assessing my curiosity and then responded. "Well, it's kind of a long story…"

He went on to explain that for reasons largely not understood, there was a spark that drove his attention to the Washington Post's Business section starting in the third grade. Third grade. He had been an avid reader for most of his life and this was just another best-selling series with something more at the end. Soon he was reading books from the Business section of the Germantown library like "The Great Game: The Emergence of Wall Street" to Roger Lowenstein's "When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management", both of which he suggested that I read. One thing led to another and soon he made a virtual stock portfolio on Google Finance, where he tested his theories. Over time, he says that he started developing a better feel and soon his investments were making money albeit virtually. In next to no time, he was offering stock tips to his teachers and his parent's friends, most of which had proved profitable yet much to his dismay despite his track record of a series of correct hunches, no one had actually ventured to trust his recommendations enough to actually invest their money. He then realizing that he was going to be late for his bus and quickly rushed through a "Eh..Well, I gotta catch my bus. See you later, Mr. X—", leaving me to ponder upon his story and his potential in solitude.

Later that afternoon, I had decided. Despite the face value absurdity of investing a thousand-plus hard-earned dollars into a stock picked by a fifteen-year old, it simply just did not feel nearly absurd to me. I was going to do it. No, I felt compelled to do it. I was hardly ever going to encounter a free Wall Street autodidactic with such energy several times in my life. Besides, I had little to lose. Not only was I myself excited to enter the stock market, but I actually had little reasons not to follow his advice. I was already set up for retirement with my teacher pension, significant cash reserves, and a few investment properties. Six thousand would be a small price to pay to be able to be advised by what could be the next Warren Buffet. And under such auspicious conditions, I wrote that $6,000 check to send into my broker.

Fast forward a few weeks. On his advice, I had invested into three different companies. They were profitable for several days, and then came the doldrums. For three agonizing weeks, the portfolio had lost around three percent of its value. Doubts started creeping in, he himself was a little unsure and nervous about the fund's poor performance. I stayed patient and right afterward, I had been rewarded for my patience—the fund jumped straight up over eight percent. Finally armed with real performance credentials, he managed to convince another two to invest around five thousand dollars each. Having proved himself already, he did not rest on his laurels, but rather he delivered another two pitches with commensurately detailed e-mails as the past, prompting me to wire an additional few thousands into the account to fund these new investments. Had you asked me an year ago if I would trust several thousands to the advice of a fifteen year old, I would have thought it a joke and yet here I am. I am only more convinced of the inexhaustible variety of life and its habit of bringing the truly unpredictable. As for my student advisor, I am just waiting to see the day where I see his name on the Wall Street Journal. I have even told him about that and he frankly told me, "If I do, just remember that it wouldn't have been possible if not for the your grand leap of faith and your enormous amount of trust you placed in me". Eh, I don’t know about that, it could be him just working his charm but I know for a fact that there are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired in the world. Without a doubt, he is a pursuer with the green orgastic light beckoning from the distance.