Page 885 - How to Make Money in Stocks Trilogy

144 HOW TO MAKE MONEY IN STOCKS SUCCESS STORIES

cess in the market both personally and professionally. Kier moved from a
large investment firm to a smaller boutique company and became a man-
ager for a team that had diversified investments. One thing that was exciting
about this smaller firm was its concentration on the new economy, which
included the more innovative companies focused on technology and the
consumer. Many of these newer companies had CAN SLIM traits.

Latching onto a Big Winner
In 1995, Kier bought Centennial Technologies, a Massachusetts company
that made PC computer cards that provided increased storage capacity.
Earnings soared 262% and sales rose 62% for the March quarter. Because
of those stellar numbers, the stock broke out of an area of price consolidation
and zoomed 17% on volume that was 838% above average. Kier recognized
the large institutional money that was going into Centennial and began pyra-
miding into the stock and added to his position.
Centennial would become the number one performing stock on The
New York Stock Exchange in 1996. Kier sold the stock when it went on a cli-
max run at the end of December 1996. Centennial ran up 65% in 5 weeks
and was 170% above its 200-day moving average, which is excessive. After a
21-month run, Kier locked in a gain of 475% in Centennial.
Kier personally held a sizeable position in the stock and had bought a sig-
nificant amount for his investors. Kier says, “The gains from this stock had a
big impact on my business, my net worth, and validated that the rules of
CAN SLIM Investing, when followed correctly, do indeed work.”
After the bear market of 2000–2003, Kier realized that trading wasn’t
going to be as easy as it had been in the 1990s. He decided to go to IBD’s
Level 3 and Level 4 Workshops to further his market knowledge. Kier lis-
tened to the recordings from those workshops over and over and met other
high level traders. He found it very helpful to exchange ideas about the mar-
ket with other investors and continued to keep in touch with several of them.
In 2005, IBD was looking for a national speaker from the Boston area.
Kier wanted to audition for the position because he felt it would be a
tremendous learning experience. He was given a PowerPoint presentation
from the IBD Education Department as the basis for his audition. Kier
knows you only get one chance to make a first impression, so he spent two
months writing a script and practicing before flying out to California to
audition in front of an IBD speaker approval committee. The hard work
paid off: Kier was unanimously approved and began teaching workshops for