If I remember right, Bleron was a guy who - about 8 years ago - announced with 2 weeks to go that he was going to start studying and was going to crush CFA L1 by cramming because he was just that awesome (or that the test was simple, I forget). Impressively, he did pass L1.
Then he came again, two weeks before CFA L2, boasting that he was going to do it again, and how he was going to blow away everyone on this board who had been working on L2 studies for so long.
The original post was done 15 months ago. I know have the perfect format for induction. To get elected, a member must receive 75% of the votes from AF posters and Chad has the the right to veto any induction. To be a voter, you must be a member here for at least 2 years and have at least 1,000 AF points
Joey was the alpha dog of the forum back in the day. In terms of volume, he was like S2000. Also pretty funny. He stopped posting a few years back, but seemed to be posting more than anyone else between about 2008 and 2011 or 2012.
Joey is part of Obama’s economic team. Bchad would be able to confirm.
His best quote here (not sure if he came up with it or just stole it) was when he mentioned that there was no point arguing with an idiot about the markets when you could just bet against him.
This is when I’m glad we don’t have a downvote button or JDV’s fanboys would crush this post.
JDV helped more people pass the exams than probably anyone else ever has. With that being pretty much the primary goal of AF, he’s probably the best poster we’ve had.
Now, as far as JDV the person you’d chat with in the Water Cooler or Investments (though that forum was really post-JDV)…I found him to be arrogant and completely wrong about almost everything topic he ever discussed. He viewed the world as an economist and academic, or your run-of-the-mill financial weatherman. Great in theory, bad in reality.
If I wanted real financial advise from someone on this forum, I could think of at least 15 people I’d ask before JDV.
tl;dr - Great dude for helping so many pass the exams. Fanboys need to take their head out of his lap though.
JDV was a Ph.D. mathematician (not unlike s2000). He did come across as arrogant sometimes, but I think more of it was just necessary callousness when dealing with some of the obnoxious folk that show up now and then on this forum. When you are highly educated, and find yourself engaged in dumb arguments with people who figure that “as long as you say something confidently, who the heck cares if it’s right, or even informed,” eventually you want to say “you’re just a f-ing idiot, and here’s how it really works.”
JDV developed quant trading systems and had a lot of experience in that, and the advice he gave on mathematical types of things always seemed pretty sound.
He also had good stories to tell.
He was not so strong on the accounting stuff and many aspects of traditional fundamental analysis, including business strategy, though he presumably knew enough to help people do FSA problems in L1 and L2. He wasn’t an idiot on those things - it’s just that his knowledge level was more ordinary, whereas his quant and systems knowledge was much more than ordinary.
He also got cranky sometimes, which - as I get older - I understand better.
I suspect that if JDV started taking lithium, he’d be a lot like s2000.
As that nice family said in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles - “You’re going the wrong way!” You’re supposed to get more mellow with age. I think I have. Or maybe I just take more sedatives now. Either way.
It’s interesting. As you get older, three things tend to happen:
You’re better able to avoid “sweating the small stuff.” This tends to make you mellower.
You’re are less patient when dealing with idiots or charlatans (partly because you’re better able to spot them, and partly because you value your time more). This can make you more grumpy-sounding.
