I’m Taking Off for the Year

By the time you read this, I will be putting my feet in front of the fire at my Lake Tahoe mansion with a stiff eggnog in hand, toasting to your good health.

You see, I need a vacation.

I have been working nonstop all year and desperately need a break. It seems that the older I get, the more I know, the more in demand I become. Why quit taking tests when I already know all the answers? I have been writing or editing 25 newsletters a week on seven subjects, and sometimes it gets exhausting. Followers tell me they get tired just reading all of my insights.

You can tear up your Rolodex card for me, unfriend me on Facebook, designate my email address as SPAM, and block my Twitter account. It won’t do you any good.

If I don’t take some time off, I am going stark raving MAD!

Over the last 18 years, I have worked the hardest in my entire life. At least this year, I won’t have had to work with a bullet wound in my hip courtesy of the Russian Army in Ukraine, as I did in 2024. Whenever I have free time, I go fight a war. That’s who you want calling your trades, someone who throws hand grenades at Russians.

This year, it was something different. Don’t pull the pin on the hand grenade with your teeth. That was the kind advice dispensed to me by my dentist while torque wrenching three titanium implants into my jaw. It seems that pulling that pin shattered the root canal under a crown, requiring new, expensive implants. If you wonder where I was last week, it was in a dentist’s chair in Salt Lake City. This is why military draftees are 18 and not 74.

This year, I have brought in a total return of +62.32%, versus +15.3% for the Dow Average. If you got half of my performance, you beat virtually everyone else in the industry, even the best hedge funds. Some 80% of managers failed to beat the index this year. In other words, I under-promised and over-delivered….in spades. That is my way.

If you wonder why I do this, it’s really very simple. Read my inbox, and you would burst into tears.

Every day, I learn tales of mortgages paid off, student loans dealt with, college educations financed, and early retirements launched. I am improving lives by the thousands. That’s far better than any hedge fund bonus could offer me, although I wouldn’t mind owning the Golden State Warriors.

At this late stage in my life, the most valuable thing is to be needed and listened to.

When horrific, uncontrollable wildfires broke out in California, I flew volunteer spotter planes for Cal Fire, holding the stick with one hand and a pair of binoculars with the other, looking for trouble and radioing in coordinates and directing aerial tankers. Nobody can fight wildfires like I can.

I lost access to my Lake Tahoe house when the big fire hit right in the middle of a remodel. All the contractors disappeared, chasing much higher-paying insurance work. At least we now have a 20-mile-wide fire break to the southwest of the house.

I have high hopes for next summer, starting with my seminar at sea across the Atlantic Ocean in June, then a trip on the Orient Express to Venice, another Matterhorn climb in July, client visits in Europe for August, flying Spitfires in England in September, and hiking the 170-mile Tahoe Rim Trail in October.

So, I will spend the next 16 days reading the deep research, speaking with old hedge fund buddies, the few still left alive, and trying to come up with a game plan for 2026. One thing is certain: we will likely make a lot more money next year, the setup is so clear. Market volatility is about to go through the roof.

Instead of sending out urgent trade alerts, emergency news flashes, and more research than you can read, I’ll be playing Monopoly and Risk, practicing my banjo, and catching up on some classic films.

I already have one trade on: I’ll watch Elf for the millionth time, but only if the kids watch Gary Cooper’s 1949 Task Force, the history of naval aviation (semper fi).

In the meantime, I’ll be running some of my favorite research pieces from the past over the next two weeks. Hot Tips will include the same.

So, everyone, please have some great holidays, spend your monster Tesla profits well, and get well rested.

We have some serious damage to do in 2026.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

John Thomas
CEO and Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader