Good Wednesday morning. This month marks the 22 year anniversary of the VRA. Our long-timers have heard this story before but it’s been a while since I’ve written it up.

In my 15th year on Wall Street, my mentor Michael Metz (Director of Research, Oppenheimer) recommended that I read "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" (1841, Charles Mackay). With a title like that, I was in. I quickly realized that this classic book about the biggest investment bubbles in history was meant to be a warning about the dot-com bull market. Message received Mike….plus it was just time.

By the end of 1999 I had retired from Wall Street at 38 and told my clients to sell their tech holdings. Six months later, dot-com began to turn into dot-bomb, resulting in a painful 75% crash in Nasdaq. Within a few years, 90% of those dot-com darlings were out of business.

Fast forward to 2003, where I was 3 years removed from Wall Street. I began reconnecting with clients…I was getting the...