For as much as I thought I knew about investing at the time, it shocks me how little I knew about investing at the time. Part of me is quite stunned that I did not blow scads of money experimenting. I was literally trying to manage my own portfolio for a while. That is not something one normally does without a great deal of expertise (and, more importantly, time). I about got myself thrown out of the offices of one off-shore brokerage. I made it about five minutes past describing how much I wanted to deposit before my host was ushering me to the door. I suppose that figures of such a size were entirely incongruent with the age, dress, and demeanour of the young woman sitting in front of him. I think I lasted the five minutes only because he was too stunned to react quickly.
I remember this sense that Operation Iraqi Freedom would cause global havoc. That the Persian Gulf would be shut down. That oil prices would hit $200 a barrel. That the Strait of Hormuz would be shut down by the Iraqis (a notion that was geographically difficult to compute unless one was confusing Iraq for Iran). Air travel, it was said, would be choked off, even beyond the immediate area of the conflict. These things did not come to pass, but dismissing the paranoia in the air before March 20th, 2003 requires a bit of hindsight thinking. I still cringe at the flippant tone of this post. “Off to my flight….” I seem to remember pecking it out in an airport lounge (CNN blaring) on my laptop, though. Perhaps that is excuse enough for the apparent deafness of tone. Perhaps not.
Wow, I hadn’t looked at the stock market in a few days. Looks like war has been very good to my portfolio. Good thing too. I transferred a lot of my stock to another brokerage account but I need to shift it all to a money manager so I can stop worrying about it when I’m traveling. That means I probably have to sell a bunch. That’s a lot less painful now than it would have been last week. Off to my flight.
I remember this sense that Operation Iraqi Freedom would cause global havoc. That the Persian Gulf would be shut down. That oil prices would hit $200 a barrel. That the Strait of Hormuz would be shut down by the Iraqis (a notion that was geographically difficult to compute unless one was confusing Iraq for Iran). Air travel, it was said, would be choked off, even beyond the immediate area of the conflict. These things did not come to pass, but dismissing the paranoia in the air before March 20th, 2003 requires a bit of hindsight thinking. I still cringe at the flippant tone of this post. “Off to my flight….” I seem to remember pecking it out in an airport lounge (CNN blaring) on my laptop, though. Perhaps that is excuse enough for the apparent deafness of tone. Perhaps not.
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