It feels like summer just began here in Mexico City. We had a few warm patches in the last few months, and to be fair the weather was incredible for “winter”, but we seemingly have sunny 75-80 degree days for the indefinite future (the average daily high from March-July is around 78 F, but it surprisingly cools down to low 70’s in the late summer). The energy and liveliness of the city is peaking again.
Johanna and I did a Tuesday-Friday trip to a beautiful city about a four-hour bus ride from Mexico City, San Miguel de Allende. I’d heard it was touristy and expensive so I didn’t have interest previously, but it was so easy to get there that we decided to go on a whim. My fears were unwarranted, and it turned out to be a beautiful and perfect getaway from the city. It reminds me of Carmel in California (without the ocean view unfortunately) with a charming cobblestone downtown full of art galleries, wine, and gourmet food. We weren’t able to go to many restaurants on our recommended lists as we found so many incredible hole-in-the-wall foodie spots. The resident gringo population skews towards Florida style 70+ years old, as I also didn’t know it’s a major retirement place for Americans, but I prefer that to a spring-break crowd. I’d highly recommend it for a sunny getaway for anyone that can conveniently get there. I actually found it reasonably priced/cheap for the quality of food and drink we had, but the hotels are shockingly expensive compared to the quality you can get on Airbnb. We had brunch at a hotel the last day that was $1,200 a night, with nice rooms I’m sure, but we rented a three-story house overlooking the city with a rooftop, working fireplaces, large garden, etc. for $200 a night.
Normal life has been good. Trading for me was really slow, but started to pick up last week. I have a new group of automated algorithms running that I’m still refining, but already had a great return last week. I caught one huge move on a stock last week with my brand new algo (50% in 30 minutes) that can make your month/year if you get a big enough bet down. Since it’s a new algorithm I’m using a small bet size for a few weeks, but I’m excited for the potential. One weakness I have is wanting to trade “perfectly”, catching every tiny good trade, and trying to avoid small losses. When trading really volatile assets like individual stocks and cryptocurrencies, although the .25% trades add up, there are enough big moves that I’m shifting my focus to trading those. I also started trading the Nasdaq index which is one of the largest and most competitive games in trading, but it’s been interesting and I think ( I need more time to confirm) profitable for me now that there’s more volatility.
I did a few CrossFit classes for fun, and ended up with some major strain in my arms/lats from doing too many pull-ups for time. I didn’t want to do kipping pull-ups, but quickly burned out doing regular ones, then with a band, and finally resorted to jumping pull-ups just to keep moving. It was my own fault for doing jumping pull-ups beyond exhaustion, which are one of the top ways to get rhabdo I learned after from the internet. I did jumping pull-ups to build strength when I first started out in CrossFit, but apparently I’m not 24 years old anymore. I was severely sore for nearly a week, with bad forearm/biceps pain in any position outside of laying on a bed where they would just go numb. The pain is gone now, but when I went to do some normal pull-ups yesterday, I still couldn’t do one even giving my max effort. It kind of freaked me out, as I have been able to do at least five strict pull-ups at any point in the last fifteen years, but I feel fine, so I’m sure I’ll be good soon. I also had cocktails and a lot of gourmet food in San Miguel, but fortunately/weirdly I didn’t gain weight. I’m back on the two Paleo meals a day program this week.
I’ve been reading a lot still, mostly fantasy books the past few weeks. I finished “Fevre Dream” by George RR Martin of “Game of Thrones” fame. It’s a steampunk vampire novel that takes place in the 1800s, and I was surprised how interesting all of the details of running a steamboat enterprise could be for me. It’s been years since I read any “Game of Thrones” books, and I was wondering if the author had done anything good previously. This was written in the 1980s, but it still has the great attributes of the author’s writing: great characters with strong passions, a lush setting, and allowing a story to show different colors of moral ambiguity without judging.
I’ve also still been reading books in the “Wheel of Time” series by Robert Jordan. I think I might have read one when I was kid, so perhaps the nostalgia of 90s fantasy is appealing to me. It’s a huge undertaking starting a twelve book series, especially when each one is massive, but somehow I’m chugging along into the third book already. They are a bit repetitive with lots of walking around and grumbling, but something about the series is comforting and a pleasure to read before bed.
This week I plan to split my time a bit with some personal writing for fun, and expanding my new trading algorithms across more time frames. It feels nice when I don’t mentally tell myself I have to get a big trading project done asap at all costs. I’ll leave you with a few pics from San Miguel de Allende. Have a great week, and look forward to updating you next time!
Andrew Manser 