The Warren Buffetts Next Door: The World's Greatest Investors You've Never Heard Of and What You Can Learn From Them

Chapter 6. Ramblin' Jack

Investor: Jack Weyland

Date of Birth: April 12, 1977

Hometown: Reno, Nevada

Personal Web Site: None

Employment: Full-time investor, former truck driver

Passions/Pursuits: Music, sports fan

Investment Strategy: Value investing, biotech stocks

Brokerage Accounts: Scottrade

Key Strategy Metric: Cash

Online Haunts: www.marketocracy.com, www.fiercebiotech.com, www.thestreet.com, www.seekingalpha.com

Best Pick: Iomai, Up 573 percent

Worst Pick: Medivation, Down 63 percent

Performance Since July 2002: Average annual return of 36 percent versus 7 percent for the S&P 500^[24]

When Jack Weyland was a trucker driving thousands of highway miles each week, he often encountered dense early morning fog in central California. It's called tule fog, and it's the leading cause of weather-related casualties in California. It is the kind of fog that paralyzes most drivers forcing them to pull off the road.

But when you get paid to haul tractor-trailers full of merchandise, time spent sitting on the side of the highway is dead time. So you learn how to cope with the fog. Weyland found that music helped calm him, getting him into a zone while driving through the fog.

"You slow down. You don't use your brights, and you keep a good distance from the red lights in front of you," says Weyland, who would drive with a heightened alertness for hazards in the mist. "I would always make it to my destination."

In many ways Weyland's approach to California's fog is an appropriate metaphor for his approach ...