[Today’s run: 3.5 miles]
Somehow through a twisted series of events we ended up with 4 shares of Nokia stock. I think it actually devolved from when we had Lucent stock, which became Alcatel and then Nokia.
Anyway, today we received a dividend check for $0.97. It started out for something over a dollar but they took out a few cents for some obscure reason and left us with 97 cents.
So that’s pretty exciting.
I started my stock trading experience in 5th grade. They gave us check books and taught us how to write checks and keep the balance. And they wanted us to read the stock listings and try to buy some stocks and make money. I don’t know if any of us actually made any money. It is hard to make money in stocks during the 3-4 months of one school semester. And the fun is in trading, so you lose ground by bouncing in and out. (I guess I don’t remember if they charged us a trading fee. It was all imaginary money anyway.)
When I worked for AT&T for about a year in the mid-1990’s I was in the employee stock purchase program. I ended up with a few shares of that. And that spun off Lucent and some other stuff, and then Lucent spun off some stuff and etc. etc.
Later on my kids came into a bit of money and I tried to manage that for them. I did well enough anyway, at least I didn’t lose it all, grew it a little bit. My one big bust was Montana Power, which you would think would be a solid stock being a monopoly utility company. But the guy running it got into the new sexy business of fiber optic cable, and he was ahead of the market, over built and went bust. There were a lot of widows and retirees who were not happy with him! I wasn’t too happy either since the stock went to zero. But I had a pretty good run on McGrath RentCorp in California that rented temporary classroom buildings and electronic equipment to places doing chip development. They did really well. And IBM did well for me too. So it didn’t turn out too bad. The kids ended up with enough to get a first car or a semester or two of school.
During that time we had an investment club at the office and we learned about how to do research and read the numbers, at least a little bit. I was actually a bit proud that I found that McGrath RentCorp by reading those three-ring-binder stock reports at the public library.
But now I’m down to 4 shares of Nokia and our $0.97 dividend. I’ve got some money in various funds for retirement, pretty much out of my hands.
One reply on “In the money”
The best outcome of trading stocks when young, in my view, is to lose a substantial portion. That would instill the concept of risk – which young people disregard on a host of levels.
Your power company anecdote reminded me of the Enron debacle. Go-go Texans changing an industry and books were audited all the while by a major accounting firm. What could possibly go wrong?
Personally, I bought some Lucent over 15 years ago with my annual IRA contribution (not much money – the cost of a nice vacation) as I thought they’d continue the legacy of Bell Labs. I eventually sold it as that promise was not fulfilled. Almost all my retirement is in low fee index funds. Without a doubt, the best investment I made – which was almost accidental – was my education. It opened so many doors. If I had landed a good union job out of high school, I’d not have bothered.