I had to take a cab today. When I got in the cab (Yellowcab) I asked the guy how his day was going and if he had been busy. It's the small talk I start with when I enter a cab. He replied with the usual...he said he could not make any money because there was too much competition from Lyft and Uber. He said he used to make a lot of money driving a cab but there was too much competition out there now. Cabbies always complain. The conversation turned to cell phones (Apple vs. Android) and he was telling me you could do everything on smartphones today. He said he day traded while he was not busy driving. Then, he had my full attention. We talked about Chipotle's earnings results that had been released a few hours earlier, Apple, Netflix....this guy surprised me. He was carrying on a conversation like a broadcast journalist from CNBC. He told me he drove a cab in NYC and moved to the Dallas area in 2000. He said he lost a lot of money in 2000 and was working his way back. He said he took a 50K cash advance on his credit card and 90 days later had made 100K and paid off the card. No, he did not tell his wife....lol He said he was from Bangladesh and his wife was 15 years younger than he was (he is 57) and she would divorce him if he found out....lol....he says he doesn't tell her everything because she would complain. He told me he had an account with Schwab with a 300K limit on his margin account and he showed me his account balance from his smartphone. This was a first. He had 267K borrowed on margin, and 167K in cash and other securities. He said he was only showing me because we had the same interest and he did not want me to think he was a liar, which I never did. Looking at his account was like watching Fast Money or CNBC. He was holding NVDA, TSLA, AMZN, GOOG, Baidu, NFLX, AAPL and a few others I don't recall. He was telling me he gets rid of his losers and when one starts winning he sells half to lock in a profit and rides out the rest. Then he said he was going 'cash only' next week until after the election. He only trades using margin and has never traded options. He said he pays about 1K a month in interest. He said he drives his cab all day, checks his phone for updates, tells his wife he made $100 driving and she does not say anything....lol. He said if he treats his wife nice and gives her something from time to time he 'gets something'. If she is mad and he does not treat her well he 'gets nothing'...........he was funny. When I got home we made comments about big risks and big rewards and I asked him about Jesse Livermore and Reminisces of a Stockbroker. He said he had never heard of him and never read about stocks, everything he knew was trial and error. So I gave him my copy of Reminisces of a Stockbroker and told him to enjoy it. He was a pretty cool guy to speak with.