A Virgin Trader

Yesterday I got all excited about an article I read. The product really caught my imagination and then, emotion grabbed me by the short and curly’s.

The first thing I did, and bear in mind this all happened in the space of 30minutes, was to check some chart data, check its financials, zoom through its corporate website, do a Google on any internet gossip about it and, finally, check out its debt levels.

Still out of breath and two cups of coffee down, I wiped the sweat from my forehead – “Slow down, you’re going too fast,” I told myself.

“**** it” I told myself, what if this stock is for real, I could be trading in the wife for a blonde in a Ferrari by lunchtime .

Now before I tell you any more I had just broken all my recently acquired ground rules for buying stock. I had:

• been set running by a random chance article a friend had sent me.
• jumped into a sector I know nothing about
• done scant research (all 30 minutes of it)
• got all emotional about the stock
• let my imagination run riot

and finally I was about to buy, at the opening of the day, this crazy, very risky stock on nothing but a few cups of coffee and a rumour.

I had frantically searched the internet for anyone talking about it and yes, there was a faint buzz rippling across cyberspace.

It was still only 10.30am UK time. The NASDAQ would not be open for a while yet. “Just keep calm,” I told myself.

In the meantime I went onto my recently setup broker account and hit the buy button. No results! This couldn’t be!  I was about to miss the opportunity of a lifetime, I was about to lose that millionaire lifestyle before I had even tasted it. I checked the markets my account was supposed to cover which said UK, European and US markets. So why could I not find the company?

I quickly realised that with most online broker accounts, you have to ring up the dealing team if you wanted to buy anything more unusual than a major US stock.

“**** it,” I told myself again, and quickly signed up for another online, execution only, broker account elsewhere. This time they did offer the stock.

By now I had chewed all my finger nails (for the first time in my life). The stock price was so low I could probably buy the whole company for less than a cup of Starbucks coffee.

I put in my quantity, set a stop limit, hit the buy button then collapsed into my chair.

Man, what an hour.

To be continued.