Compartment 14B

Back in the saddle (and hopefully it�s strapped to a bull). 2004-02-12 - 11:09 a.m. This week I braced myself and bought a stock for the first time in a couple of years. Like many people, I had dabbled in some trading back at the height of the stock market frenzy and, like many people, didn�t get out in time and got bitten on the ass. The only reason I didn�t lose more is that I didn�t have more to invest up front. That and I didn�t sell everything off at rock-bottom prices so the market�s had a chance to climb up a bit again. If I�d sold my entire portfolio off then, I�d have lost well over 90% of my investment and if I sold it as it stands now, it�s only a 70% loss. In relative terms, I�m on much better ground now than I was a year or two ago. And to be honest, while I knew that the possibility of losing money existed, it was a calculated and informed risk I was willing to take. I�m fairly good with saving money and if I put a year�s savings into the market and lost it while I was young, well, lesson learned and I�d just save the money again the next year and put it somewhere more secure. Of course I was hoping to make money but I knew that if I didn�t it wouldn�t be the end of the world. I was single and had no big responsibilities (this was before I�d bought the house that I eventually turned into my infill project and well before I met J) and it�s a lot easier to take risks when it�s only yourself who suffers the consequences. And even in the worst case scenario, I only stood to lose money I already had, not go into actual debt. So why am I buying now? Well for one thing, there seems to be a mood of optimism that�s gotten to me. For another, my damn brokerage firm has decided they have every right to charge me an inactivity fee and there doesn�t seem to be much I can do to stop them other than, well, get active. Hindsight being what it is, I wish I�d had the money to invest last year as things have picked up substantially since then. For another, I noticed a stock that I�d owned once had dipped lower than the level it�s been sitting at for a number of months and they had a good quarterly report recently so I�m thinking it might go back up to the level it normally enjoyed. I suppose we�ll see. Wish me luck. In an almost inevitable, ironic twist, one of the very few stocks I sold at the bottom of the market and took a loss on is one of the only ones that is worth considerably more right now than it was when I bought it. Isn�t that always the way? Before - After All content � Shawna 2003-2010 That means no swiping my stuff - text, images, etc. - without asking. P.S. If you're emailing me, replace the [at] with @ in the "to" line. Oh, and if you put the word "journal" in the subject line it'll have a better chance of making it past my junk mail filters. recommend me HTML and design help by Jo hosted by Diaryland