25- My Silver Anniversary in Investing
Hello everyone and welcome to the boodle blog! It is wonderful having you here, and if you’re a boodle member, welcome back and if this is your first time here, thank you for joining us!
These blogs are written by me; Ron one of the co-founders of boodle. I decided to write a blog to share with our members what was happening in the investment world, based on the research that we do here at boodle.
Normally, I would write about the DOW, S&P500 and the NASDAQ, and share with you, in this blog what you should be doing based on our research. This month I have decided to acknowledge my 25th anniversary in the Stock Market and share with you what I have seen and learned about when it comes to investing.
I started investing in July of 1998 after receiving an inheritance from my mother. Rather than buy a new car, or take a vacation, I decided to invest that inheritance in the stock market. At this point in my life I didn’t know anything about investing, so I decided to go to a financial advisor at a well-known bank to and I told him that I wanted to invest in the stock market.
I invested $25,000 with him in July of 1998 and 3 months later I got my first statement in the mail and it showed a loss of about $12,000! This was the point when I knew I didn’t know what the heck I was doing (and to a degree, neither did my financial advisor).
So I had a choice to make; sell everything at a loss, or stay with my advisor and hope the money comes back. I decided to sell at a loss. I also decided that I needed to understand how that amount of money could be lost in a short amount of time. I decided to seek answers at my local library. I went to the business section and met a librarian named Debbie Long. I asked her to show me the books, magazines and newspapers that dealt with the Stock Market. She went looking for my request and when she came back a short time later, she had books that were 300, 400, 500 pages long! Magazines, newsletters and other financial periodicals!
At first, I decided not to read all of that material. It was too daunting. I finally made up my mind to read everything, and 25 years later, I am still reading! I discovered something amazing back then- the more financial knowledge I learned, the more money I made!
It wasn’t too long before friends, family members and co-workers were picking my brain and asking for my opinion on the Stock Market. These early years of 1999, 2000, 2001 were the years when I learned how the Stock Market worked and they were some of my favorite years as an investor. I watched and learned how fortunes were made and lost, and I got to follow some fascinating people. I remember David Alger a fund manager who was always impeccably dressed and sadly died in the World Trade Center during the 911 attacks. I remember Mary Meeker aka “The Queen of the Net”. Mary held sway over dot com stocks and she was among the first to write about Amazon.
There are so many others to mention, but suffice it to say, the world of investing is fascinating. When I started boodle in 2011, little did I know what would lay ahead for me in the years to come. I never imagined that I would spend years learning about investing. I didn’t know that I would meet people from all walks of life who would share my passion for financial knowledge. Finally, when boodle went “LIVE” and we started getting clients, it was a confirmation that there are many, many people who want to invest with a company they can trust and tell their friends, co-workers and family members about. We want boodle to be that company. Investing need not be hard, difficult or scary. We try to show our clients and prospects that investing can be rewarding and educational. I want everyone associated with boodle to know that this company was built for them, and I hope the journey on the road of financial education continues for years to come. Thank you for being a part of this journey with me.