ThumbTack Fund Report 27 – Received A Call From Margin. Didn't Pick Up. He Chose Violence.

I suspect I won't enjoy writing this 1st part… but what the heck, it's the festive period, let you guys enjoy some schadenfreude. Don't get too used to it though, I don't intend to make this a regular occurrence. On the 3rd December 2025, whilst I was fast asleep at like 35,000 feet in the air, unbeknown to me… TTF was getting savagely ravaged by Mr Market with margin calls hitting fast and furiously, left right and centre: P.S: The blue 'LQD' = Liquidation It really was a comedy of errors, together with a series of amazingly timed unfortunate events that did me in. I bet bigly on a biotech company in a binary event, and went apeshit crazy, viewing it as a near certainty event. And as Mark Twain said, it's not what you don't know that gets you killed… it's what you know FOR SURE, that just ain't true, that gets you killed. It's 1 of those things: someone at the table has a full house and goes all in. I tried to suppress a smile while looking at my hand of 4 of a kind, and called his bluff. As I prepared to scoop up all the chips on the table, another dude shows his hand and it was a straight flush. What can I say? Wouldn't you bet big with a 4 of a kind hand? Yet there are no certainties in life. Shit happens. But it's not just that. If I was not travelling right at that exact moment, I'd have the chance to limit the damage, cut loss here and there, and avoid being totally and savagely raped by the whimsical and erratic Mr Market. Instead, the results of the binary event that I was so confident about, was released smack when I was in the air. Not when I was waiting to board the flight, not when I just landed, but in that short few hours of flying… that's when they chose to whack TTF real hard. Jesus man. Someone up there really hates me. Or at least, deems it funny enough to see how TTI would react to seeing his portfolio net worth crash on day 1 of his holidays. What a troll. I swear I thought it was a glitch when I checked after I landed. All in, the damage I took from this entire fiasco was the largest I've ever experienced (thus far). 1 moment TTF was sitting at around USD 6.7mil, 4 hours later, it's at USD 5.3mil. Yup. USD 1.4mil just vaporized overnight. Not fun at all, as you can imagine. I estimate, of this USD 1.4mil, at least 600k USD could've been avoided if not for the subsequent margin calls that resulted from the big loss from the binary event. 1 thing just led to another and snowballed like a nuclear bomb. And I wasn't available to do any damage control. Anyway, I was on tour guide duties, bringing the entire family, including parents and in laws on a holiday, so I didn't want to dampen the mood, so the only thing poor TTI could do was to suck it all in, put on a smile, and carry on. Remember this happened on day 1 of a 12 day trip. Man, someone up there really wants to test me. I did reveal this big loss to my son though, and he looked worried and asked why I didn't seem to have any reaction. I replied: 'Do you know why Deadpool wears red all the time? It's so that his enemies can't see him bleed. Similarly, Papa has no reaction cos I only cry in the shower.' LOL. I could literally see the shock on his face. Share some pain with the little man, traumatize him a little, let him experience a bit of the high octane life of TTI. 2 decades from now, it'd be his turn. Anyway, since then, upon returning from my holiday, I've been putting in extra hours all the way from market opening to closing, in a bid to claw back some of the losses and cover this big gaping hole the massive series of margin calls left in TTF. It's extremely tedious, it's extremely demoralizing, it's extremely draining. But at least I managed to retrieve approximately USD700k out of the USD1.4mil that Mr Market robbed me out of on the 03rd Dec. Seeing that I only returned to SG in the middle of Dec… to claw back 700k USD in just 2 weeks, which also includes several public holidays and half days, it's already quite an amazing feat, and I'm really grateful for that. And btw, the screenshot of liquidations is not even all that happened. The liquidations span more than a page long, so I only screenshotted that 1 page. It's really THAT savage. It seems like I don't have a good record when it comes to Decembers. December 2024 wasn't kind to me (https://thumbtackinvestor.wordpress.com/2025/01/21/thumbtack-fund-report-25-disastrous-q4-dazzling-2024/), December 2025 was even worse. Somebody, please please remind me to hit the red 'D-day liquidate all' button on Interactive Brokers on 30th Nov 2026, and just run off to some obscure uninhabited in the far corners of Earth to hide and wait for the next new year. I've enough of this shit. Anyway, the show must go on. And fortunately, the numbers are still not that bad even after getting margin called. Most folks, when they get margin called, don't get to live to tell the tale. It's all gone. But I'm still around, TTF is still around, and to quote Mark Twain again: 'The reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated' Here's TTF's report card for 2025: Full Year 2025: SPY: +17.72% VT: +22.43% STI: +24.75% TTF: +33.90% SINCE INCEPTION (FEB 2020), ANNUALIZED: SPY: +15.26% VT: +12.44% STI: +7.08% TTF: +23.24% Note: Returns are MWRs, all figures in USD TTF's NAV: USD 5,990,119.01 Deposits/Withdrawals: USD 2,524,708.05 Net capital gains since inception: USD 3,465,410.96 For reference, the last fund report: https://thumbtackinvestor.wordpress.com/2025/01/21/thumbtack-fund-report-25-disastrous-q4-dazzling-2024/ Since TTF was incorporated in Feb 2020, this means that TTF has enjoyed a net gain of USD 3,465,410.96 over a period of 71 months of investment activity, which works out to be USD 48,808.61 every month, or approximately SGD 63.0k per month from Feb 2020 to date. Cumulative ROI (Feb 2020 to Dec 2025): SPY: +131.44% VT: +99.89% STI: +49.82% TTF: +243.82% TTF has generated double digit money weighted returns every year since inception: 2020: +89.83% (https://thumbtackinvestor.wordpress.com/2021/01/02/thumbtack-fund-report-6-rose-of-jericho-2020/) 2021: +24.91% (https://thumbtackinvestor.wordpress.com/2022/01/07/thumbtack-fund-report-10-hello-2022/) 2022: +11.94% (https://thumbtackinvestor.wordpress.com/2023/01/02/thumbtack-fund-report-13-hello-2023/) 2023: +33.81% (https://thumbtackinvestor.wordpress.com/2024/01/04/thumbtack-fund-report-19-macro-thoughts-for-2024/) 2024: +21.93% (https://thumbtackinvestor.wordpress.com/2025/01/21/thumbtack-fund-report-25-disastrous-q4-dazzling-2024/) 2025: +33.90% COMMENTARY 2025 was eerily similar to 2024. At 1 point in 2024, TTF was up over 50% YTD, before crashing towards the end and settling at +21.93%. In 2025, the same thing happened: at 1 point, TTF was pushing close to +60% YTD, before the margin call cut the returns by almost half to end the year at +33.90%. It feels kinda deflating tbh, but at the same time, I'm somewhat grateful to be able to claw half of it back. Also, just objectively speaking, looking at the numbers and not the experience… TTF still managed to beat ALL 3 benchmarks this year, TTF still grew by USD 1,693,957.61 in 2025, of which, USD 1,490,098.23 comes solely from capital gains from Mr Market. Going into the 7th year, I still managed to meet my twin fund objectives of never having a single losing year, and to continue to grow the fund's CAGR (from +21.68% at the end of 2024 to the current +23.24%). At the current fund size and assuming my CAGR holds up, every year, TTF should be growing by a 7 digit USD figure from here onwards, even without a single dollar of capital injection. In 2025, I've also improved on my processes and widened my investing moat over Mr Market significantly. I can tell that over time, I'm building on this moat because fewer people are doing what I'm doing, fewer folks understand what I'm doing, and well, the numbers bear it out. At the macro level, US as well as the world markets have had an amazingly bullish period, compounding at over 20% per annum annually for the past 3 years. If you look back and you missed out on the gains from the past 3 years… it'd be disastrous for your portfolio if you extrapolate it over the next few decades. Early wins are absolutely crucial. If one were to position mostly in the local SG markets, 2025 would've been an absolutely fantastic year, but zooming out, it'd have been a terrible long term record vis a vis the US. It remains to be seen if STI can repeat 2025's performance in 2026, but my own gut feel is that it'd be unlikely. If one were to position mostly in the HK markets, well, the Hang Seng Index did pretty well in 2025, returning +30.6% or so, but over the past 3 years, it returned an abysmal 9.54%, far lagging behind the US and even the World index. Knowing this, it behooves me to warn you, dear reader, of what is patently obvious: whether you like the US or not, the numbers over the long term don't lie. The USD is still the reserve currency of the world and that's not going to change anytime soon. They are still the super power, the world's economy moves in lockstep with the US's economy, and they are still the leader of the free world. And trust me, I belong to the dark side minority of market participants praying and hoping for a sustained, long term US bear market. Simply cos I think TTF can outperform on a relative basis, in such an environment. I have the ability to avoid losses like the plaque… but that's not a very useful ability when everything is bubbliciously frothy and there aren't losses to avoid. Let's be clear though: hope is hope, and hope rarely becomes reality on a consistent basis. Superior investors know how not to let their biases cloud their judgement and consequently, their portfolio composition and strategy. Mediocre and abysmal investors invest like they are supporting their favorite soccer teams: they have an ideology, they like or hate something, and they cheer or jeer accordingly, and put their money right where the cheering or jeering is. Any opposing view becomes an affront to their existence. They become defensive, irritable and outright insufferable. Mr Market is not a forgiving guy, he doesn't give a damn about your opinions, he makes money off stupidity and emotional instability. YEAR IN REVIEW Despite the nasty call from 'Margin', when I look back, 2025 has generally been a pretty darn good year though. The 1 success that mattered the most to me was this: https://thumbtackinvestor.wordpress.com/2025/11/25/im-elated/ And 2026 will bring about 1 heck of a new challenge: Now I have a 1 year break in 2026, before the party starts again in 2027 for 妹妹. On top of that, all other financial related aspects grew tremendously in 2025; TTF grew by 7 digits, property segment obviously grew as well, dunno by how much, but I've been injecting capital into it non-stop, and business revenue/income also grew significantly yoy. I don't have the confirmed full year numbers yet, but it's very likely to be close to or maybe even exceeding the previous all time high. Investing, Property and Business all grew. That's TTI's Trinity of Wealth. SELLING PLUSHIES Imagine this. It's a typical evening in December, you're back from work, had your dinner and was about to kick back in your arm chair to doom scroll tiktok videos or read mothership articles or read some celebrity news… Suddenly, your doorbell rings. You get up grudgingly, and when you throw open the door, you are confronted with this: Yup, those are TTI's kids. Well, they do have heads of course. Bless the new AI erase feature. This past Dec school holidays, inspiration struck them and they decided to do some business going door to door to sell plushies. Well, it didn't start off that way; they wanted to sell it online, but after some due diligence, figured that it'd be much faster and much more efficient to just go door to door and bank on some healthy dose of goodwill from strangers. Me, being the ever prescient venture capitalist, contributed $100 in start up capital, but unfortunately, got played out as I received 0 equity, and 0 share of any subsequent profits. Pretty sure I got paid-in-kind (love) though. The inventory was mostly plushies, but it's also kinda random. All were sourced from China during our recent trip: Some of them were won at claw machines there, some were bought from vendors (they did all the negotiating, I was only the wallet), and some… believe it or not, were discarded goods that they retrieved that had only minor defects or NO defects. The vendors were just lazy to sort out the defective ones from the normal ones I guess. Here are the 2 TTI juniors in action, setting out on their sales pitches: Now, this was NOT my idea ok… the kiddos thought of it and wanted to do it themselves. I merely provided start up capital. But I supported it cos I thought it's a good idea for them to get some real life harsh lessons on earning money. The result after days/nights of going door to door, mostly in HDBs, is this: Now, now, I wouldn't suggest you quit your jobs to become door to door plushie salesmen just yet. Although the entire venture was profitable, the profits came up to a mere… $200 or so. And you gotta divide that by 2. Then you gotta divide that by the number of such sessions, each lasting about 2-3 hours. My rough ballpark estimate is that each session of doing this nets them a grand total of something like probably $10 each. Which equates to just under $5/hr. LOL. It's a tough line of work. And all that is without expensing the cost of training the 2 salesmen, inventory maintenance and storage, as well as transportation/delivery costs with daddy being the driver of course. Don't even get me started on the parking fees, which were NOT expensed. Training includes helping the 2 salesmen work on their sales pitches. Wife had a big contribution when she suggested that when people asks why they're doing this, they say 'We are trying our hand at entrepreneurship…', which I thought was a very good way to explain themselves. Obviously, you'd be able to postulate by now, that the entire exercise was not done for the sake of profits. Rather, they came with some really good lessons for the kids. 1stly, of course, there was the exhilaration of earning your 1st dollar via your own efforts. When I was 18, at 1 point, I was a door to door fund raiser for a charity, selling some stationary set to raise funds for the charity. No, I was not being altruistic, it was a job. I responded to a newspaper classifieds ad and got the job. For every stationary set that I sold, we received $10, of which I got a commission of $2. Me and my then girlfriend, now wife, would fill my army duffel bag with the stationary sets and drag it up to the top floor of a HDB block, and go down from there, door to door, to peddle our wares. It was slow, laborious and just outright unglamorous, but who cares, we made some money, which felt like a lot at that time. Almost 30yrs later, now my kids are doing the same thing. LOL. But there are 'bad' moments too. Some days, they went door to door for almost 3 hours and sold absolutely NOTHING. Of course, it's not a good feeling for the kids, but secretly, I was delighted. Afterall, they're learning a vital life lesson: things don't always go your way. And that's the 2nd lesson they learnt. Effort is not necessarily commensurate with results. Life does suck sometimes, deal with it. 3rdly, doing sales and giving sales pitches is really one of the vital life skills for adults. Many jobs require it, even the 'non-sales' jobs actually require some form of pitching. When you're posturing for a job promotion, that's a sales pitch in itself. You're pitching yourself. SG kids are mostly way too timid and non-vocal enough. It's funny that Asian parents like to tell their kids to keep quiet and stuff, when in reality, as adults, to be successful, you need to be articulate, you need to be visible (usually) and you need to be a great communicator. And lastly, they experienced rejection. At least 2 grown ass adults from 2 different households who opened the door, berated them and told them they're not supposed to be doing this without licensing. To the 2 grown ass adults, I have this to say: Dude, they're respectful, they merely asked and left without being pushy (I made sure of that). They asked once, you could just simply say no and shut the door. Or don't even open. There's no need to be nasty. Sides, TTI's kids are geniuses. You really wanna be the asshole that they remember from their childhood and mention in their best selling autobiographies when they are the equivalent of Chew Shou Zi, or when they are the PM of SG? Not wise right? LOL. But, above all, I just wanna say…. THANKS. Really, cos afterall, my prime objective is to let the kids experience what the real adult world is like, and we all know that everyone has assholes in their lives. I was legit a bit worried that it'd be too smooth sailing and they'd think life is that easy. Just be adorable and polite at the same time, and they get their way. So thanks for helping me get the point across. I do wish there were more than 2 though, and probably more variety in the type of assholes. Still, most of their experience has been good. There was a dude who bought stuff from them, laughed and went to ring HIS neighbors doorbell and helped them to sell to his own neighbor. Obviously he's on great terms with his neighbor. He even got into a 'bidding war' with the neighbor for the Totoro plushie. Another guy said 'wow, you kids are very brave to try this', and proceeded to buy something and told them to keep the change. Several adults gave them canned drinks and cookies, some asked their kids to come and choose stuff to give their classmates as Christmas gifts etc. Overall, I thought the entire venture accomplished what I wanted it to. Some time ago, a buddy of mine told me that he watched a Chinese movie on a flight, and it immediately reminded him of me. He said it was hilarious, he enjoyed it immensely, and told me to go watch it. The movie is this: Well, SC, I just wanna say…… Nah, I'm worse. Cos in the movie, the protagonist was only kept in the dark about the family's wealth, that's all. I make my kids do hard labor for < $5/hr. LOL. TRAVEL EXPERIENCES/CORE MEMORIES This is definitely not the 1st time I'm asking this… but for anyone who reads this… if you have had some amazing travel experience before, please kindly share it with me. Drop it in the comments section, or just email me directly pls. Now, I don't mean DESTINATIONS. I mean EXPERIENCES. Lotsa people would keep telling me about destinations. Like oh this place or that place is great. But in my own experience, destinations mean nothing. After a while, it's kinda boring tbh. It's the stuff you get to do that makes it memorable. I must've said this several times in this blog cos tbh, accumulating experiences is really my only money spending vice. Before kids, and after I've had some wealth accumulated, we were travelling like 4 times a year. 2 of which would be to far away destinations, and the other 2, to somewhere nearer. After a while, I realized, it's all kinda the same, UNLESS you have some unique experience. That's what makes it memorable. Otherwise, a destination is just… a destination. Sure, it's still fun… but 1 year after that, off the top of your head, you wouldn't remember exactly what you did. Whereas if you had some unique experience, it'd be something you continue to talk about, you remember it without needing to look at the photos to recall. For example, these are the unique/memorable that my family did, that we still remember easily, without having to refer to photos: Forest Adventure in Beppu, Japan 2. Piloting own canal boat in waterways of UK … and that includes 'working the locks'….. … as well as moaring for the night. ThumbTack Fund Report 23 – The 2 Weapons That Every Active Retail Investor Needs 3. Snowmobiling at high speeds through the arctic forests …. stopping anywhere you fancy…… …. and lying down in the middle of a frozen lake. 4. Boat rowing in Ireland 5. Finally spotting the elusive leopards at Yala National Park after hours of hunting, Sri Lanka 6. Husky dog sledding in Finland (this one is a huge favorite with the kids) 7. ATV riding in Malaysia 8. Wild Trout fishing in Bibury Village, England 9. (Almost) missing the ferry from Tallinn, Estonia to Stockholm, Sweden OK, this one is not a planned 'experience' per say, but we definitely remember it and talk about it all the time. Cruised from Stockholm to Tallinn for the Christmas market, but got too leisurely in Tallinn and missed the time, and *almost missed the return cruise back to Stockholm. It'd have been a disaster, as the luggage was all on board. We literally ran for our lives shouting for the cruise operator to wait for us. Also, got scammed by the cab driver cos he knew we were in a rush and desperate. You won't forget stuff like that. 10. Viking battle (reenactment) in Denmark 2 Asian kids fought with valor, won't lose to the ang mohs. 11. Hellbrunn Palace, Austria Water trick fountains powered by ancient 17th century 'technology'. Wife wanted to skip this, cos it didn't seem like anything much, and it's costly to enter. Glad I insisted, we literally still talk about this to this day. Unexpected fun for young kids. Totally worth it. 12. Soccer set pieces on a random field in Perth, Australia Kids won't remember this, but I do. Literally spent hours on set pieces on a random field in Perth during a road trip. Zhun zhun top left corner ok. TTI was a Roberto Carlos in my heydays, terrorizing the flanks, too speedy to be stopped. Alright, as you can see, I'm a sucker for memorable experiences. Pls think about what was the most memorable experience you had with your family and let me know, the destination doesn't matter. And I say this cos in Dec 2025, I brought my family to Yunan, China. And quite frankly, there's nothing too memorable about it for me. Sure, everything is chio, the scenery is chio, the elderly had a lot of fun, they loved it, elderly always love to go China, …. but there's nothing much for me there. Everyday you go see more chio scenery, after a while, it's just… scenery right? Like I've seen countless of such scenery, you go back to SG, you'd forget it after a month. What'd you talk about even if you remember it? 'Eh, remember the time we went there and…. took a photo? The backdrop was so… pretty?' Bleh. Nothing much wad. Boring. It's boring cos it's not an experience. The kids don't even remember the names of the places we went to in Yunan… but if I mention any of the above 11 experiences, they still remember it. Or maybe I'm just not feeling all the pretty scenery after getting margin called on day 1. Hahaha. Yeah, I'm sure that was a factor. Anyway, I think this should be the last trip whereby I'm bringing all the elderlies along. It's exhausting being the de facto tour guide. Plus it's also kinda expensive paying for everyone on every trip. And most importantly, up to a certain age, it's really really tough to travel. They might want to, but the body cannot do what the mind wants. I can see it myself during this trip. Hard truth is, we all age, bodies deteriorate and after a while, you gotta call it a day. So take it from me, this is your cue to go get your bucket list checked off. Don't wait until you 'have more money'. You won't ever have enough money to do everything you want to, and when you think you do, you won't have enough vitality to do it. Or enough time. And for gods' sake, stop trying to save money in order to FIRE. Dunno why esp in SG's investing circles, everybody's doing the same shit. Save and save and save, try to get some few % dividends, just to FIRE. FIRE already still gotta live like a pauper, watch cashflow until very tight, can't do this, can't eat that, can't go there. Gotta choose between having kids/family and FIRE. My god. Are we really going to that extent? Scrimp and save for the whole life. I don't get the point of doing this. Might as well don't be alive. Pro tip: dead people don't spend money at all. Honestly, I look around, all these simi FIRE folks, their lives seem more sucky than my non-FIRE life. Betcha they'd rather switch places with me. I was poor for the 1st 3 decades of my life, and an extreme saver, and that's it. I have had enough of that life. No more. No thank you. I don't think I like it very much, not turning back, over my dead body, you guys go ahead, good luck with that. I prefer to spend money. (But earn it back 100-fold of course). Anyway, I'm ending this post with some Yunan pics. Not too many cos I don't wanna spend too much time blurring out faces. But again, I mean it, please please share with me what are your most memorable EXPERIENCES. My December 2026 timetable is empty (June 2026 is settled… California, Nevada, Arizona. Can't write about the special planned experience now cos wife and maybe kids will read this post and it's meant to be a surprise. But oh boy, I think it's gg to be epic. TTF better buck up for 2026, imma spend shit ton of money for June) LOL they really eat every shit you can think of. Wa, actually, my wife looks damn good in this kinda Hanfu. Too bad cannot wear in modern day. But at home… hmmm….. OK, that's the end. See you guys at high watermark 7M.