Tribute to my father

This is a tribute to my father, who passed away from terminal cancer on 2 Feb 2012.  He was the one who showed me the door to the world of foreign currency trading four years ago, when he came to Melbourne on one of his customary family visits in 2007.

I had observed him playing with charts on a prior visit six or eight months beforehand.  Dad had already started to be a student of the markets in 2006.  He tried to share his enthusiasm and newfound discoveries with me back then, but my mind was not receptive to it as I was busy with other shit in life.  I had frantically been manoeuvring to get out of my dead-end accounting job.

One Monday in 2007, after spending months in a quarter life crisis wondering about Life and my place in the professional workplace, I arrived home from another day of accounting work.  Dad said to me “Hey son, guess how much I made on the markets today trading gold?”  Fucked if I know.  “$4,000”  WTF???  I could not believe my ears, that’s as much as I made in a month preparing goddamn tax returns I said.  Dad just laughed.

Being a lower-middle class scrub from the outer suburbs, this kind of earning potential was a complete shock to me.  It was like Dad dropped a nuclear bomb in my head, a bomb that expanded new horizons and shone light over new possibilities.  I needed to know what this “markets” thing was, and as they say the rest was history.

Together with Dad we started to learn about the markets in 2007.  I think Dad managed to blow up his first $20,000 account in this period.  But because I took up a new job as a tax lawyer in July 2007, I did not give much effort to the markets but resumed again sometime in 2008.  That was when both of us started to get serious about walking this road together.

That was four years ago.  Over that period we've ridden the highs and the lows.  We've been through cycles of explosive learning and plateau.  Experienced the thrills and the lowest of despairs that only the markets can give.  We've made money, and lost even more.  But we've always been there for each other, and we never gave up our common dream. 

Dad came to visit us one last time in December 2011, right at a time when the markets were shutting down for Xmas break.  He had been coughing for a number of weeks beforehand, but appeared fine otherwise.  Over the next 5 weeks he got progressively more sick, and decided to cut his trip short to go back home to Thailand and check himself into the hospital.  Later the doctors diagnosed him with stage IV lung, liver and lymphatic cancer, and he passed away 3 weeks after.  Noone, including Dad, had expected any of this...let alone how quickly it happened.

I have lost not just a father but also a friend.  Thank you Dad for everything we've shared.  You always believed we can make it.  And yes I agree, we are on the cusp of doing something great.  Though I may walk our journey alone now, I know you are watching and I will do my best to make you proud.