Stocks

A couple of months ago I was talked into opening an online stock trading account. Actually this is a return of sorts, because many years ago, when I was surrounded by babies and life seemed a lot less complex, I had a prospering trading account, because back in those days, not only was everyone trading stocks, we were all really good at it.

Or so we thought.

See, when the market is climbing to new heights every day and there are stocks that double almost every day, you start to believe that this whole stock trading game is simple.

I do believe that the wisest advice I ever got was from a fellow stay at home father who had been a broker for some time. He and I would be standing in a park, watching our girls run around and play and we would offer stock tips. One day, I told him he must be super wealthy because of all the sage advice he had given me. Then he said, "there are three types of animals that play with stocks, bears, bulls and pigs. The pigs always get slaughtered by both the bears and bulls."

Pigs are the people, like me, who thought that just because a company had a cute name, Widgets.com, we could make a killing. No research, no market understanding or even a glance at a companies finances. Those things were old school. Online traders just needed a hunch. Or a friend with some picks.

That's how I came to know the mystery Israeli. My friend Bill, who has been leading me into danger and fun for over 30 years, introduced me to the Mystery Israeli. He sat in a coffee shop on the lower east side of Manhattan back when I was an active trader. This would be years ago. I believe it was about the time the president was receiving oral pleasure in the white house.

The Mystery Israeli sipped a beverage and looked me over. I sat, we talked about some of the high tech companies I was in love with, he threw me some stock symbols and said we should meet again. We never did. We stay in touch via email and Bill.

This morning I got an email. The Mystery Israeli wanted to know how much money I had in my online trading account. I emailed back, asking how he knew I was "back in the game?" His response? "That is neither here nor there, do you have a stock for me, because I have a present for you."

I told him I liked Cisco, because of late it has been dropping, but the fundamentals remain strong. He wrote back, with 3 stock symbols for a companies he likes. All were low, but for the last few weeks, they had been flat, at a low level. I had seen this before from him. His advice has always been spot the good stock at its low point and begin to buy. The three he showed me were all in that boat.

The Mystery Israeli is a trader. He does not buy and hold, he does not love stocks or companies, he uses them to make more money. Once they bring him money, he sells them. Sometimes the stocks he has made a profit on continue to grow and he could have made a lot more money, sometimes they fall. Such is the market.

I logged onto my new trading account and bought some shares. It will be interesting to see how the stocks do. This much I know for sure, in less that a week I am down 10 percent. "Not bad," said the Mystery Israeli, "not a bad start at all..."