John Bardacino
John’s interest in the financial markets was sparked in 1986 at the age of 16 when, after an automobile accident, he was bedridden for several months. To pass the time, he began studying the movements in financial markets and immersed himself in study. This started what would become a lifelong interest in the fields of economics, finance, and philosophy. After attending Siena College in Albany, NY for two years as an economics major, he became restless as he saw little practical application for mainstream academic knowledge to trading and investing. He then moved to Las Vegas, NV.
In an effort to gain insights into risk, reward, and human nature that would in turn help to make him a better and more disciplined investor, In 1995 he joined the opening staff of the Hard Rock Hotel, where he spent 6 years working as a craps dealer, 21 dealer, and pit boss. Although he says he “would not trade his memories from the Hard Rock for anything,” he quickly came to realize that success as an investor had less to do with learning from gamblers and more to do with understanding the effects of the economic, monetary, and political institutions of the world and developing a mental framework that exploited the market conditions created by these inherently flawed institutions.
During this time he returned to college, continuing his education at UNLV where he studied philosophy, research methods, economics, finance, and information systems. He would go on to earn a BA as well as an MBA. While at UNLV he came into contact with two individuals that would have a big impact on him intellectually. The first was Dr. Hans Hoppe, the internationally known leading methodologist of the Austrian School of Economics, who taught him about the problems with mainstream political and economic thought as well as the inefficiencies that were created by the flawed institutional frameworks that we live and operate in. The second was Dr. Gurpreet Dhillon, a leading researcher in the area of interpretive and qualitative research methods in the field of Information Systems. Through him, John became interested in the socioeconomic effects of information technologies as well as the constant attempts by researchers to improperly apply the methods of the natural sciences to the social sciences.
After graduation, he worked as a Senior Research Analyst for Burnham Real Estate Services, a San Diego based commercial real estate firm. While there, he developed proprietary rent prediction models for the San Diego markets that utilized a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. While working at Burnham, he continued his education and passed the level 1 exams of the CFA and CAIA programs.
But his mind would always return to his true passion. Through a trial and error process he developed an understanding of what separated the winners from the losers and what it took to develop a competitive advantage that enabled an investor to consistently earn high returns. He feels that while there are certain economic, financial, and psychological concepts that are necessary to learn in order to succeed, each individual person is different and must develop their own unique competitive advantage that is aligned to who they are as a unique individual. He concluded that consistent success depended on the deliberate development of an optimized “mental framework” through which an individual viewed the world and made decisions.
In his forthcoming book Exploit The Market: A Mental Framework For Profitable Investing, he outlines the essential concepts needed to create a mental framework that exploits the boom-bust nature of the financial markets and provides a methodology by which an investor or trader can “individualize” these concepts to create their own individual competitive advantage. He continues to reside in Las Vegas, NV and is an associate at AK Vargason, a boutique money management and business insurance/benefits management firm.