Benzinga's Exclusive Interview With VectorVest Founder: Last of Three Part Series (SPY)

Benzinga's Exclusive Interview With VectorVest Chairman And Founder Dr. Bart DiLiddo: Part 3 of 3

Benzinga had the chance to sit down with VectorVest Inc’s Chairman Bart DiLiddo at the New York Traders Expo. DiLiddo provided a wealth of information; from a breakdown of what makes VectorVest unique, to his lighthearted view of Cleveland's athletics.

In the last segment of the three part series, DiLiddo discusses sports, food, his most memorable market activity, and advice for new investors.

S: What’s your favorite sport to watch?

B: I love NFL

S: What’s your favorite team?

B: (Laughing) I grew up in Cleveland so I’ve been a long term Cleveland Browns fan. They have been so miserable for so long that I now watch NFL football where I don’t root for anybody and I just enjoy watching the competition. Cleveland has Lebron, and I love basketball, and Lebron is fantastic. He’s awesome. And he’s been such a joy to watch for the last 5 or 6 years.

S: Aren’t there rumors he may be leaving?

B: This coming summer he will become a free agent and the rumor is that he’ll go elsewhere, most likely New York. I’ll tell you though, the owner of the Cavs, who I think is a Detroit native, is bound and determined to keep him. He is the franchise. It’s going to be interesting. My feeling is that if Lebron –and this may sound contradictory- if Lebron wins the NBA championship, he will feel free to leave. He paid his dues to the city of Cleveland and Akron, and he brought home a championship, and what more can he do?

S: Do you think he’ll be a good fit with the Knicks?

B: There isn’t a more exciting city (New York City), other than Las Vegas…

S: I’ve never been

B: You’ve got to go to Vegas, pal. But New York is a lot of fun, and I think Lebron, as a superstar, will really blossom here in New York.

S: Whats your favorite food?

B: There’s nothing I like better than a beautiful steak.

S: What’s the best steak place you’ve ever been to?

B: I’ve been to a lot of real good ones. My favorite’s are: a steak house in Seattle, I believe it’s called The Metropolitan Grill. That’s excellent. In Cleveland there’s a place called Red- The Steakhouse. Hyde Park Bar and Grill (in Austin, TX) is good too. I really enjoy going out and having a good steak. Tonight, in New York, we’re going to walk over to a place called Joe DiMaggio’s. It’s not well known, but the steaks are good. There are many good steak houses here in NY.

S: What’s your most memorable trade ever? It can be a winner or a loser...

B: There was a period in late 1999 when we called an upturn off a bottom on Oct 22nd 1999, and tech stocks were exploding. Everything, even terrible stocks, was going up like crazy. The market was getting into a fever pitch. On Oct 22nd we called this upturn, and gave this strategy, which was called “Big Guerillas”. And had you looked at the top 10 stocks in that strategy you would have found Oracle, Cisco, and others, and one in particular called QualComm.

QualComm, by that time, was several hundred dollars per share. It was going up and up and this idiot from this organization called Kidder Peabody, which doesn’t exist anymore, began covering QualComm which is into wireless cell phones. He began saying, “they’re going to go into China, and the market is fantastic, it’s going to go up to $1100/share” and one day, that stock went up 150 points. It’s amazing to just own a stock and see it go up 150 points in one day, and I it went up to around 875. Then you can see it start to come down. And boy, I cut the cord on that sucker, and QualComm came crashing back down. QualComm was a heck of a stock.

We had a subscriber who bought those 10 stocks he saw with that strategy. Between Oct 22nd and the end of the year, he turned $100,000 into over $1million. Because what he was doing was selling any stock that started going down, and put the money into any stocks that kept going up. He was building up his cash flow and as the portfolio went up in value he could borrow more money. He had that portfolio and he took his money and he moved to Las Vegas, and he was the happiest guy I ever saw.

You know, everyone was worried about Y2K, and a lot of people had made so much money in 1999, they didn’t want to sell it and pay the taxes. So they waited until January. The first week of January 2000, the market got killed, big downturns and it bounced up and went down, and bounced up and back down. And finally when the market peaked in March, we were telling our subscribers to get out. That’s what market timing does for you.

S: What advice would you give to a younger person aspiring to become a successful investor- not just a trader or a big shot- what would your best advice be?

B: If I were to give advice to a new investor, I would tell them to “Let the trend be your friend”. Never fight the market trend. The first thing you have to learn how to do is identify when the market is going up and how to identify when the market is going down. You can use any technique you want, but let the trend be your friend. And don’t fight the market.

Click here to read the first part of the interview

Click here to read the second part of the interview