Day 2 of posting, or my 2nd attempt to keep the bet that I can write every day and -- shudder -- post the results on Twitter. For those of you readers in a betting spirit, you too can get in on the fun! The bet inherent in this project is whether it all remains serious-ish in tone (like the Verbatim blog thus far) or whether everything I produce is such utter tosh that one must conclude that it's all a big joke --which would be consistent with the Joke-a-Day nature of the @LindseyPipesUp account up til now.
For day 2, I'd like to continue the conversation on betting -- but this time, to talk a little about a personal interest I've been developing. A nascent one. The stock market.
For many, many years, the stock market to me was some amorphous, evil, magic nonsense. People threw money in it to generate more money, but you could only learn to harness that money-making power by memorizing and following a carefully-proscribed set of instructions that involved dicking people over, and also you only got to learn the rules if you were part of the old boy's club. With enough money to consider buying a yacht instead.
I was lucky enough to gain some experience that started to demystify a bit of that. In a way, it was my own pass to the old boy's club. I got a job in tech by growing my social circle, then I got into operations. The way money in the tech industry is thrown around is its own circle of betting hell, but seeing how it rose and fell got me over my terror of risk. It turns out there's some neat stuff on the other side.
As a caveat to whatever follows in and from this post, I've noticed in my research that it's not a good sign I'm getting interest in the stock market. Those who know more than most say that a large number of novices entering and speculating in the stock market is a sign of bad times ahead. Whether that is because none of us know what we're doing, or because we give the market false promises in the form of short-vs-long term investing, or because of--most likely--a collection of confusing and unprovable other factors, it seems to be the case. Self-identifying that should keep a sane person out of the market. Perhaps my persistence and those of others like me is mixed into the grand plan in some foreseeable way. Regardless, we're here, and some of us hope to keep at it.
A quick rundown of some things I'm learning:
- capital gains tax is a bitch, but could be worse
- a bear is a bad thing, while a bull is a good thing. Yay for tauruses! Ursa, major disappointment.
- individual stocks cost more than you'd think for anything decent
- still, some of the biggest companies' stock costs way less than you'd think
- you will always, always regret not buying something sooner
Because this week past has been a bit draining and the week ahead promises to follow suit, I'm going to finish off here for the night. To wrap everything up: remember to place your bets now on the nature of this project -- whether it's a serious or a humorous endeavor-- so you can reap all that sweet, tweet validation for a bet of the longest duration.
Good luck to all players! Except you, short sellers.
Those of you short-selling this journey may kindly stick your shorts where the sun don't shine.
Love,
@LindseyPipesUp, verbatim