Trade Like an O'Neil Disciple: How We Made 18,000% in the Stock Market

Chapter 3. How Gil Morales Made Over 11,000 Percent in the Stock Market

Do not be concerned with the fruit of your action—just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord. This is a powerful spiritual practice.

—Eckhard Tolle, Practicing the Power of Now

I didn't get into the investment business until June of 1991, when I got a job as a Financial Consultant trainee at Merrill Lynch's Beverly Hills branch. At the time I was making $2,000 a month, which wasn't enough to live anywhere in Los Angeles where you didn't risk getting hit by stray bullets. So I had to suck it up and live with my parents while I gave my nascent brokerage career a chance to gain traction. In the end it wasn't so bad. Living with my parents as an adult was not much different from living with other adult housemates, which I had done many times before during my post-college existence, except that these housemates didn't stay up all night partying and they didn't stick you with the phone bill.

Beverly Hills is also a surreal place to work. Where else can you, while driving your 1991 Dodge Colt, almost end up running over the actress Jamie Lee Curtis as she jaywalks across Rodeo Drive? Even better, the Beverly Hills Merrill Lynch office occupied the top two floors of a building that housed a Sharper Image store on the ground floor. One afternoon I headed down six floors to the third and bottom level of the building's underground parking garage only to find my car blocked by a large ...