8 February 2021

From the news

 It has been remarkable to watch so may people suddenly become experts in the stock market over the last few weeks.

I myself have no claim to any such expertise.  Possibly it is genetic: my family's ability to invariably back the wrong horse (often literally) is the stuff of legend.  In my experience, by the time I have heard about an opportunity, it had ceased to be one.

My sole venture into the market occurred some years ago, back when mutual funds were the Big Thing.  I invested in some funds that claimed to be ethical.  The average returns were not great, but better than interest rates on GICs, bonds, or anything else.  So I parked some money in the bonds, sat back and waited as absolutely nothing happened.

And I mean nothing.  They did not lose money, but they didn't gain any either.  Meanwhile, simple inflation meant that the buying power of the money I put in the ethical funds was decreasing. 

I was left with a hard choice: either march into the offices and say something along the lines of 'Nuts to your 'Ethical funds'! I want unethical funds! Put my money in the biggest earth rapingest, Child Labouringest, insider tradingest funds available to Man!' and put my money into greater yield, but more risky funds, or leave my money where it was, cross my fingers, and hope it improved.

In the end I did neither.  I sold off the funds (at a small loss when the administration fees were deducted) and put my money back in some low interest accounts and GICs.

A couple of months later, an earthquake and tsunami took out a city in Japan, which caused the pacific rim funds (the stars of the mutual fund market) to plummet, and the halo effect also drove down my former funds.  The small loss turned out to be a dodged bullet.  I haven't gone back to the market since. 

The moral of this story: Don't take advice from me.  I honestly have no clue.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I can beat that, I never have money to invest in anything and wouldn't know where to begin. Shameful, I worked hard to avoid all money topics in my life and in the end it paid off, money avoided me too. However, a young relative was in on that Game Stop thing, and he made enough to pay off the house he bought a year ago.