Laughing Stock

By Tony Kornheiser

Sunday, July 27, 1997; Page F01
The Washington Post 

After much deliberation I have finally decided to jump into the
stock market. Even as the market climbed higher and higher, I
resisted. Quite frankly, a man of my age has difficulty relating to
anything that rises so high and so fast. But now I have decided
to buy stocks.

I made my decision when my mailman drove past my house the
other day in a Mercedes. He's been dabbling in the market. His
initial portfolio apparently consisted of a single 29-cent stamp
and he's been reinvesting his profits for a year.

It used to be that the mysterious intricate nuances of the stock
market were unfathomable to idiots like me. Traditionally the
men who scored big in the market had names like Chauncey
Pickering Poockington IV, and the women who scored big had
names like Mrs. Chauncey Pickering Poockington IV. But my
friend Paul, who's a business writer, assures me that "now
every idiot can make a killing."

So I think the time is ripe for me to get into the market --
considering that the Dow has doubled since the time you began
reading this. It is up so high that this time the folks throwing
themselves off roofs are the ones who don't own stocks.

Be forewarned, though, if I go into the market, you may want
to get out. I've tried this twice before. The first time was almost
25 years ago. A girl I had gone to high school with had
become a stockbroker, and I went to her with my entire
savings and told her I wanted to buy a stock that would make
me rich. She told me to purchase a computer stock called Intel.
This was before everybody had computers, so the stock was
unknown. I bought 500 shares at 16.

Day after day I followed Intel. It went up as high as 18, and
down as low as 14. So it was pretty much becalmed. But
every day I called my broker seeking reassurance. If I saw it
going down one-quarter of a point I'd say, "Do you think it's
bottoming out? I have a bad feeling. I think we ought to sell
before it crashes." 

This went on for months. Finally she told me I was driving her
crazy. "You're too needy," she said. "I'm a stockbroker, not a
psychiatrist." She said that if owning Intel was too aggravating,
I should sell it.

It was trading at 14 at the time. I sold it all.

That's me, Tony Kornheiser, Mr. Phlegm-for-Brains. To my
knowledge nobody else in the history of the stock market ever
took a loss on Intel. 

It is now around 90. And that doesn't count all the times it has
split. Intel has made so much money over the last 25 years that
had I kept it, right now I could own Switzerland. The official
Swiss currency would be the "Kornheiser." It would be very
strong against international markets. It would take only 12
Kornheisers to purchase a Lexus. But with 20, you could buy a
Kornheiser Z-16F, a snazzy gull-wing racing car manufactured
by Kornheiser Motor Works of Zurich. 

But I didn't keep Intel. I sold it and bought a five-year CD at
my bank, where it made 3 percent interest, which made me the
laughingstock of everybody in my neighborhood, including
many preschool children. I ran into my stockbroker friend a
few months ago, and she reminded me about selling Intel at 14.

"You were a fool," she said.

"Yes, but at least my money was safe in the bank," I said.

"It would have been safe in the toilet too," she replied. 

(By the way she looked great; she'd had her nose done.)

Anyway, the next time I bought stock was in 1987. I
remember it distinctly. I had saved up enough money to feel
adventurous. And in the fall of 1987 I bought $10,000 worth
of a variety of stocks. I remember the exact date, Oct. 16, a
Friday. The reason I remember was because on Monday, Oct.
19, I got on a flight to Minneapolis to cover the World Series,
and by the time the plane landed the stock market had crashed
and my portfolio was suddenly worth $5,000. I lost half of my
savings in 2 1/2 hours. It's a good thing the World Series
wasn't in L.A. That's a five-hour flight. I'd have been tapped
out. I sold the rest of my stocks the next day, and I haven't
been back since.

That relieved me of the responsibility of paying attention to
Alan Greenspan, the saturnine chairman of the Federal Reserve
Board. Isn't it great how Greenspan belches and the stock
market panics? What power.

It's too bad he appears to have no zany sense of humor.
Because if he did, he could call a press conference, stand at the
lectern, clear his throat importantly and say, "Ahem. Someone
left the cake out in the rain. I don't think that I can take it,
'cause it took so long to bake it, and I'll never have that recipe
again." And then just walk off.

Pillsbury stock would plummet! Thousands of Americans
would lose their jobs! The president would urge calm! Julia
Child would be appointed secretary of the interior! The dollar
would sink against the yen! Wheat futures would skyrocket!

And then this bull market would turn into a bear market -- right
when I was set to jump in! Story of my life. 


© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company

The Tony Kornheiser Unofficial Home Page
Anyelet's Demesne
GeoCities