Born in Yerevan, Armenia in early 80’s and witnessing the collapse of Soviet Union left me astonished and full of questions. As a young boy I remember my uncle cursing the banking system and Gorbachev, while tossing wads of 100s (Rubles) into the fireplace as they were deemed worthless and inconvertible. I was fascinated about the hyperinflation periods in Germany, Italy, Zimbabwe and enjoyed studying recession recoveries of different countries and pursued economics relentlessly.

Those were the horrid days in 1989-1991 where me and my brother would compute math problems under a kerosene lamp and hear AK-47 gunshots outside time to time. I grew up addicted to numbers as well as playing chess, and had the pleasure to play a game with the world master Garry Kasparov before he challenged the Deep Blue IBM computer. Needless to say, I lost.

Fast forward 24 years, I finally quit my 9-to-5 commercial underwriter banking position and became a professional day trader with quarter million under management. My only mistake in life was pouring most of my gains into real estate right before the sub-prime crisis when I experienced my first recession. Lesson learned. I mostly live in my Texas residence than in California as I like to get more sleep before the markets open due to the time difference.

I graduated from University of Texas at San Antonio with BBA in Finance and Accounting, and have been in pursuit of a CFA designation ever since. At some point, I shifted my focus fully on trading and writing a book entitled “$100,000 is the Hardest Hill to Climb”, which should be published by 2016.
My work speaks for itself as I have written over 100+ articles on Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha, some of which have won Editor’s Choice awards by senior editors and recommended by hedge fund managers.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/297385-an-in-depth-look-at-chevrons-profitability-before-the-crisis

My goal is to educate, enrich, inspire and transform lives of ambitious entrepreneurs who were not trust fund babies to begin with and were born with nothing, just like me.