This is a tribute to Bob.

I am near tears, frustrated by my chances of success.  I fear they are nil.  As you may have surmised, by my spotty attendance here, I have been either over at bobsadviceforstocks, rereading his notes, again, or I have been watching the market on TV.  Mostly what I did over the weekend was get ready to pick my first stock.

I copied a full page of notes, off his Podcast, listing click by click where I was to go, at the four websites he uses to research his stock picks.  I spent Saturday going through them all, figuring out how to read everything.  Then, all of yesterday, I practiced looking up stocks and rating them, according to the various statistics.

It was just like looking for a man.  Nothing was good enough.  I got all the way through this one stock, which wasn’t in a sector I feel good about but whose numbers looked great, only to discover from some other source, the mention of bankruptcy.  Nowhere had I seen evidence of that.  The only thing I can figure is that they are being sued and that their possible fines haven’t been addressed yet.

I have a new-found respect for Bob’s ability to pick a stock because, to me, it looks impossible.  The sectors which are in favor, like banks or software, slip in and out of popularity so fast you really have to be on top of where the economy’s at.  And these quarterlies; if guidance is off, sometimes it doesn’t seem to matter but other times it does.  There’s no hard and fast rule.  You have to get a feel for the mood, constantly take the temperature of the market.  And it seems like they feed off each other, spreading rumors.  First there’s plenty of oil.  Prices drop.  Then with the mere suggestion that there might not be enough, prices hike.  Exxon, after robbing us all year, reported bigger earnings than a company has ever made:  36.13 BILLION last year. 

Bob’s been doing this for 37 years so maybe I should give myself a little more time.  I think, once I familiarize myself with the names of these obscure companies, I won’t waste so much time researching the wrong ones.  The only good thing about those hours I spent with the wrong stock was just like the three years of dating I did.  You get a better idea of what you’re looking for, where to find it, and how to recognize it.  Now if I can just cram 37 years into the next month.

Tonight was the first, in a six-part series, of classes entitled Journey Through Grief.  I got a call over the weekend, asking me who I would be grieving the loss of.  I said my dad.  Even saying it sounded like a lie; I’ve never shed one tear over him.  But then that’s why I signed up.

It’s a team effort, with a retired chaplain and a social worker leading our group of ten.  The social worker’s specialty is hospice and palliative care, showing patients and their families the way; helping with death.  The retired chaplain has started these groups for various hospitals, after patient’s families expressed a need, having no idea how to navigate the process of saying good-bye.

I originally signed up with the idea that I could better help the patients I see in the hospital; know more about how to act around grief.  Sarah, the  nurse, was giving the Breast Cancer Outreach Program an overview of this journey through grief.  And when we went around the room, talking about our experiences with death, it was overwhelming.  Enough so that it was decided we would form our own group on grief.

Everyone, as we went around the circle tonight, told tearful stories of how their person died, what the funeral was like and how much they still missed them.  Everyone but me.  No one had to hand me the Kleenex box, as I described the way my father lied to us about his illness.  He lied to us about his financial affairs with the family business, swindling his own brother and children.  Pretty much his whole life was one big lie. 

And I lied, too.  I never let on that I knew what he’d done.  And I let him pretend he wasn’t dying.

I didn’t have much of a story to tell as I never went to the funeral, I never said good-bye, and I don’t miss him.  But then that’s why I went, so that I can.

On a brighter note, I stole this from pea_patch:

Your Personality Profile

You are dignified, spiritual, and wise. Always unsatisfied, you constantly try to better yourself. You are also a seeker of knowledge and often buried in books. You tend to be philosophical, looking for the big picture in life. You dream of inner peace for yourself, your friends, and the world. A good friend, you always give of yourself first.

 

                       The World’s Shortest Personality Test

Sorry I forgot to mention the coffee date.  It went like this.  I arrived early and beat her there.  I chose a table by the window so I could see her get out of the car.  It had been over a year since our fight, and we never saw each other again. I hadn’t spoken to her since she blocked my Email.

We were best friends, growing up together after I moved across the street in third grade.  She went to a private, Catholic grade school but switched to our public high school.  Every morning at the bus stop (her driveway) we’d eye each other’s make-up and check to see who had the best outfit on.  It was usually a draw.  We were remarkably similar and probably influenced each other’s style, even to this day.  

When she’s out in the world she’s always been distant, competative.  But after school, in our playclothes, taking the trail down by the creek or riding our bikes, we were like sisters. 

It was so odd to watch women getting out of their cars, wondering if that was going to be her, not knowing how much she’d changed, if she’d stayed the same. She got married last month and somehow I thought that might make her different.

I’d arrived without make-up on.  My getting-ready time had been cut short by the sudden downward movement of Nike.  But I brought a little case in my purse and, when I saw the clock said I had ten minutes, I snuck in the bathroom. 

When I looked in the mirror I changed my mind.  Henry told me once, before my meeting with a woman I needed to make points with,            

” Don’t look better than she does.”                                                        

I put the make-up back in my purse and went out to my chair by the window.

Realizing my phone had been turned off, I pressed on send to check for messages.  She’d just called.  Wow, that’s cold.  She gets me here and then doesn’t show.   It was noisy in Starbucks but I could hear that familiar, tear-choked,

“Prudy, I need you to call me.”

Uh-oh, now what? 

I went outside so I could hear better and dialed her house.

“Daphne, are you okay?  It sounded like you were crying.”

She kind of hesitated and made a noise like she was going to deny it or blow it off.

“I was.  I had an unexpected disaster dumped in my lap this morning and I apologize but I can’t make it.  I’ve been trying to reach you.  I called the house”

“I was in the shower.”

“And then I called your cell.”

“I’m sorry.  I forgot to turn it on.”

There was a second there that was like old times.

“Daphne are you okay?  Is there something I can do?  Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, I don’t need you for that.” 

It landed with a thud and then she added, 

“I could maybe meet you in a little while.”

“We can do this anytime,” I said.  “You sound upset.”

“Well, I am.”

“You take care of it, and we’ll get together next week.”

“All right.  Thank you.”

“Sure, bye.”

“Bye, Prudy.”

I got back in my car and thought this was probably better than our meeting would have gone.

 

Bob said today the stock market was the worst it’s been in three years.  I pushed back my chair this morning, after making sure I had enough to live on for a year.  Thank God I moved some to cash before this came crashing down.

I stretched my legs and did something really silly with my mouth, like how horses blow air.  I laughed so hard, having no idea where that came from.  Then I tried it again because if felt so good.  My dog went crazy.  I’ve never made that noise in my whole life.  I’ve never even heard of anyone making that noise.  Really, you would have thought a horse was in the house. I must have been sitting here with pursed lips for a week and had to shake it off.  You should try it and shake your head while you’re doing it.

I’m almost relieved it’s Friday and the market is a mess.  I won’t have to think about it.  It’s wacked and there’s nothing smart I can do at this point that will change anything.  It’s a time out.

After I made like a horse I took a look around my house and decided the dishes could wait another day.  I settled in with the bills.  I have everything on autopay so there wasn’t much but I should have paid them weeks ago.  I wrote something for the hospital that needed to be delivered because I forgot to put it in the mail. 

It was kind of nice to get in my car and just drive.  I thought about how much I’ve learned this week and how fortunate it was that I had things in place for the fall.  Even if I stumbled in the process I was a whole lot better off than I would have been before Bob’s tutorials.  You have NO IDEA how much time I have spent this last week reading and writing about the market.  Poor Bob. 

It’s like when I discovered bellydancing.  I learned just about everything there was to know about it.  It took me four years but even then I was still learning about the different rhythms of the various regions.

The thing I like about the market, well one of the things is that, like with the dance, you can make it your own.  Everyone has their own instincts, their own theory, their own style.  It’s interactive, too.  You can see what everyone else is doing, trying to anticipate their next move.  It’s been crazy for me because I don’t know what the hell’s been going on.

I’ve never looked at the market this closely and I’ve never had anyone I could question, like I do now.  It never occurred to me to look at a stock I didn’t recognize.  But now that I understand how to read the profiles I seriously spend half the day looking up symbols and reading about the companies, checking their profiles.  I’ll go to the daily chart and just watch a stock, see how it moves.  I will sit during Bloomberg or Mad Money and watch the ticker tape at the bottom of the screen.  I have pages of stocks that I want to follow-up on.  I am starting to memorize all their symbols.

I don’t think I’m gonna look for a job.  I think I’m gonna learn how to do this and do it well enough to meet my expenses.  I LOVE IT.  I even like listening to the news now.  ME!  Life is so exciting.  I feel more connected with the world when I know what’s going on.  I could study four hours a day for four years and there’d probably still be stuff to learn.  Loving IT.  I can’t believe I’m this old and just now found something ELSE that I am nuts over.  Really, you don’t know how good it feels to get your head inside this shit and stay there for hours and hours.  I never even thought I liked numbers.  Or money.  I could look at charts all day long.  I sound like I’m in love, huh.

I am either watching TV (Bloomberg or Mad Money or Squawk Box) or I’m reading Bob or I’m talking to my broker, or I’m combing the Internet, reading about stocks.  This has been going on for days.  Today I bought Williams (WTU) which pays 8%, or at least it does now.  It’s a natural gas company in Texas and what I’ve purchased is an interest which expires in 2012.  One half hour after I bought it I saw on Bloomberg where there’s more than enough natural gas and what with the warm temperatures this winter, interest in gas is waning.  Yipes. 

And I sold Intel.  I had been holding onto it because everyone said tech stocks were finally going to do their thing.  And it had started going up.  But my broker said, at our last meeting, that software stocks were going to do better than semiconductors (I’m pretty sure that translates as chips) and so I was keeping an eye on it but I sold it a day too late.  That’s what greed will get you; an 11% loss, just on the day I mean, but still.  Serves me right for sleeping in.  No more of that.

I know it sounds like I am losing money all over the place but I am making money, too.  The learning curve is so steep and there’s no way around these initial losses if you want to get in there and do the trades.  Unless you just follow Bob’s advice.  I went back tonight, and made a list of all the stocks he reviewed and bought or wanted to buy.  Now I will go check and see how they’ve performed since the market fell back.

Now that you’re bored stiff I will remind you of my scary coffee date tomorrow with my estranged friend, the realtor.  Wish me luck.

As I read your comments about the stock market, it’s a little unnerving, this reflection you give, of a daring woman.  And as I mentioned in my profile it does seem like going out on a limb.  But once you’ve grappled with cancer — And if you met my mother and my ex, you’d know that there’s not much I can’t handle.  I figure you look at what you’ve got and figure out a way you can use it to make more.  I never in a million years would have chosen this but it’s all I have to live on so I better make it work for me.

The thing is, I can’t afford NOT to get more involved.  Just because you have a broker doesn’t mean you don’t have to manage your account.  He or she is busy watching their stuff and a lot of other people’s stuff.  Unless you call them up all the time, they’re probably not gonna be looking at your stocks every day to notice something needs to be sold.  Having mutual funds wasn’t that profitable for me the last few years.  That’s not how you make money these days.

A certain segment of the economy will enjoy a few months of success and then four to six months later you better be ready to look for the next run, with tech stocks, for example.  Financials have been doing well but I’m getting ready to switch gears again.  Yeah, it’s scary but there’s a guy on here named Bob who is a wonderful teacher.  Check him out and get his latest tutorial at bobsadviceforstocks.  He does podcasts which are really fun to listen to.  At the end he sounds just like Paul Harvey, when he closes with “Good-night.”

I don’t think Bob pays too much attention to what’s en vogue.  He looks at the numbers and only picks stocks that — You should just go see for yourself.  I don’t want to say what he does or doesn’t do.

Well, I’m off to bed.  “Good-night.” 

I remember when my sister (separated one) told me that I seemed to have her same tendency to sabotage myself.  She urged me to finish writing the second book before I jumped into Internet writing.  I have forsaken both for the stock market.  It has consumed me, and I attribute part of the draw to the fact that I have a gambler’s mentality, after all.

I remember when I was married and he was working in Vegas for the week.  I flew in that weekend and he handed me a hundred dollars to gamble with.  I thought he must be crazy but I went ahead and wasted it all.  I flew back home, closing my eyes in the air, seeing the smoke-filled frenzy of people losing their retirement money.  I’ll never do that again, I thought.

Losing money on stock the other day (the total lost was $1,107) was no different than throwing the $100 away, just ten times worse.  I knew that stock was gonna get me.  I watched it climb all last year, scared to get burned.  But I had info on the company’s new drug, soon to be approved by the FDA, and I wanted to get in early.  Uh-huh.  Rule #1:  Never buy the night before the quarterly is announced.  Even if you know they’ve made it.  I did a lot of things wrong on that one.  And that’s why I lost my money.

I’ve decided not to go to Florida this year.  That way I won’t have to beat myself up about the loss.  And this week I took $1000, each, off the top of three stocks that were gainers so last night I went to bed feeling good again, like I was a real winner

Thanks for cheering me up.  I knew everything you said was true but I was still in a funk.  Your comments did move me beyond the day and past my silliness.  I was mostly just so mad at myself.  I lost $800 today and all because I did things wrong.  But it taught me several important lessons about investing.  And I’ve forgiven myself.  We’ll see what happens in the weeks to come but I feel sure the stock will rally. 

Tonight I went to a class on relieving stress.  I couldn’t believe that there was only one other person in attendance — A third person showed up toward the end — in a town where everyone is depressed because of the rain.  Well, not everyone, probably.  But these classes are free and they bring you hot tea and the place is so cool. 

So it’s me and this really annoying guy.  I’ve been thinking about him ever since I got home, about why he was so annoying and I’m worried it’s because he reminded me of myself.  I really think that’s it. 

She asked him a very simple question — “She” being the naturopath giving the talk — and he went on and on with this inane personal story about how he couldn’t find something in his filing cabinets and ended up breaking two pieces of china.  One was something he made, so I guess that’s not china.  Anyway, on and on he went about what the broken thing looked like, how he decorated it,  how he was breathing heavily — That’s all she wanted:  his physical response to stress.

The other thing I didn’t like was his diatribe about meditation and this whole philosophy that sounded like one big cliche.  Even though I agreed with it all.  That was the most irritating part, that he was right.  But, OMG, how self-absorbed.  And that’s where I think I related the most.  Here I sit, night after night, telling you all how I feel.  Gag me.  Yeah, it’s fuck me and gag me.  And just in case you’re thinking about making any suggestive comments, please don’t.  I’ve been known to delete them:)

He kept referring to his comfort zone, how that was stressful to leave it.  I said not knowing how to do things, that was stressful to me.  It’s the same thing.  Me with my special teas and perfect outfits.  The woman probably saw two identically neurotic fifty-five-year-olds sitting there whining.

On the way home, though, I started thinking about some of the cool things I learned and maybe some of the nice things he said.  He went to England with his mother (no surprise there) over the summer and he was talking about finding magic when they went exploring.

She had us write down what we did for fun, when we wanted to unwind.  Then she had us list what we liked to do on vacation, the idea being that we should look at that vacation list and integrate some of it into our regular week.  I thought that was a really good idea.  And I want to go exploring.  New places open up all the time.

One of the questions was how we felt when we were relaxed.  At the end she said we should write that on a piece of paper and tape it to the bathroom mirror or the fridge so we remember to feel it.

And she talked about laughing, how it releases seratonin and how we don’t get enough of it.  Then I remembered how Bridget (dog) makes me laugh and how much I appreciate my kids and friends because they are all funny.  My favorite people are all very funny and maybe that’s why, because I have that need to laugh, so busy thinking and worrying all the time.  Actually, I’m not as much of a worrier as I used to be.  But, yeah, I could stand to laugh more.  What makes you laugh?

I went to bed thinking I was so smart.  The stock was rising and the results weren’t even out yet.  Then I woke up and the thing had fallen from 93-something to 88.  Fuck me.

My lunch date canceled and now my mother is on her way over to pick up something, which if I’d just remembered to give it to my sister this could have been avoided.  Fuck me.

I gained six pounds.  FUCK ME.

It hasn’t stopped raining since I can’t remember when.  It’s the kind of rain where you’re drenched by the time you get from the front door to your car.  I’m supposed to leave at 1:30 to meet my broker so I can sign the papers changing to a fee-based account.  That ought to be grim.  That’s how it is here, dark and grim.

I’m back from the mountains.  Kind of bittersweet since we’ll never go again but we had a really good time, when we might not have, so I’m relieved.  Lots of cooking and scrabble — I thought of you, Emily.  I’d never played Scrabble before so that was tons of fun.  It snowed the whole time we were there, and our cabin overlooked the lake so the view was picturesque.  The sledding trail was right outside the kitchen window and someone had brought their German Shorthair.  That made me miss Bridget a little.  We kept a puzzle going but Scrabble was our big deal.  And the middle child insisted on buying a gingerbread house kit so the youngest did that.  Oh, and I brought music I thought they might like so we had tunes.  But what pleased me the most was watching the middle child teach the youngest one stuff on her Apple. 

She took a picture of a friend of theirs and stuck in into another picture of a town in Amsterdam.  The other thing I liked watching them do was go sledding at midnight.  The middle one has lived in S.F. for the last three years so it was great to see them get closer.

It feels lonely here.  I stepped back into my old life as a mom but then I came home to this big empty house with the rain and wind outside  — It is really nasty out.  Those of you from Portland know what I’m talking about.  That little cabin was so cozy and cute.  All three of us sitting around the table or hanging out in the kitchen. 

Christmas is over now but my tree is still up.  I hate taking Christmas down.  Plus I’m fat.  I can feel my ass when I walk.  The other thing is that I did a very scary thing today.  I sold a substantial holding and put all the money down on a stock which will announce its quarterly earnings tomorrow.  I’ve never done that before.  I have always kept my purchases small.  And talk about gambling.  If their earnings are not what they forecasted, I’m in big trouble. 

But I decided that this year I’m going to be a more aggressive trader.  I called my broker and told him I wanted to switch to a fee-based account.  Do you think, anybody out there who knows about consulting, that I could set up a business and call myself an independent contracter and do unrelated things like trading stock and writing about stuff and it wouldn’t matter that the two things were separate?  I certainly don’t know enough about the market to write anything about it.  It’s just that I got my bill from NW Natural gas and it was $420 this month.  Yeah.  The most it was last year was $300 and I thought that was staggering.  So if I could write off part of my living expenses that would be good.

I’m just throwin some ideas around so let me know if you have any experience with this.