Sep. 11--MANATEE_For James DePorre, a virtual world filled the void left by his loss of hearing. From the soundless depths emerged an opportunity in the online arena of stock trading, fueled by his propensity for wisely choosing when to buy and sell profitable stocks.
The Anna Maria resident, who is known as RevShark, helped found an online subscription-only chatroom where professional traders spend hours each day talking shop and sharing valuable advice.
Now DePorre, a regular contributor to RealMoney.com, is taking his buy-and-sell know-how to the masses. A book called "Invest Like a Shark" will hit the shelves next year. On the horizon is a new subscription service called Shark Investing Pro that will allow novices to follow his every move as he works with his own $100,000 E-Trade portfolio.
For his 120-plus online comrades who subscribe to the $400 per month SuperTraders chat room, a revamped forum is under construction by Bradenton-based Webtivity Design Solutions. Its title appropriately reflects his aggressive investment philosophy: The Shark Tank.
"You have to stay in motion and move quickly," DePorre said. "When things get dangerous and you've had your fill, move on quickly. Active investment is safer than the more conservative long-term, buy-and-hold."
Don't call him a day trader, which he said carries a negative connotation.
"It implies that positions are opened and closed in one day and that is not what we do," DePorre said. "Sometimes, events occur that mandate a shorter time frame but typically our goal is to continue holding a stock until it stops acting right and warrants a sell."
Dan Rosenblum of New York joined SuperTraders when it first launched in 1999. He liked DePorre's style of trading, which he observed in DePorre's first online chat room on America Online, the original Shark Tank, which he started in 1995 with Herb Greenberg, now with CBS MarketWatch.
"The market was very good but the other thing that I always loved about him was he wasn't afraid to tell you to sit on your hands," Rosenblum said. "I needed that. I was a little bit of a cowboy when I started."
When the stock market collapsed in 2001, Rosenblum and the other chat room traders walked away virtually unscathed.
"We rode it out by not overtrading," Rosenblum said.
DePorre's run as a stock trading guru began in the early 1990s after he suddenly became deaf, a genetic condition shared by his mother and sister.
Largely losing his ability to communicate by traditional means, he was forced to give up his law and CPA practice.
The Internet offered an alternate medium for correspondence.
And an online stock trading community was beginning to take shape.
"I had nothing to do so I fell into this by accident, and it turned out to be the greatest thing to happen to me," DePorre said.
He said he's made more money as a stock trader than he could have made practicing law.
Rosenblum, a former medical salesman, started with $40,000.
"I've been able to generate a six-figure income every year since I've been there (in the SuperTraders chatroom)," Rosenblum said.
But the life of a trader is not for everyone, especially the faint of heart.
"You have to be emotionally balanced. You can't get too excited if stocks are doing good or if your stocks are dropping," said Rosenblum, who discourages people from joining the ranks.
Said DePorre, "Trading online or through a broker can be very risky unless people take the proper steps to learn the basics first and slowly evolve their skills. This is a big reason behind the Shark Investing Pro service."
In about a month, subscribers will pay $79.95 each month to watch DePorre work his magic on his own $100,000 portfolio. Since last November, only subscribers of SuperTraders, which is geared toward full-time professionals, could watch him manage the portfolio, which has yielded about a 30 percent return to date, he said.
He said generally people can start trading with as little as $5,000.
"It depends on what style you adopt," DePorre said. "You're limited with the smaller amount, which is harder to trade actively. If you had that amount, you could do longer-term trades of weeks or months."
Two weeks ago, DePorre received regulatory approval to start a money management practice, said Quint Tatro, who is spearheading the development and rollout of the new services.
DePorre has already received dozens of requests from qualified investors -- those with a net worth of $1.5 million or more.
"When you start managing $75 million to $100 million, it's tough to move as quickly," Tatro said. "At $100 million, we'll probably stop taking new clients."
In addition to the new services, DePorre is in the process of moving his office to a new Anna Maria locale.
"I can live out here on the tip of Anna Maria Island and do something that only people from Wall Street could do 15 or 20 years ago," he said.
Anna Maria Island, it seems, is an ideal spot to invest like a shark.
