The Bright Side: Joe Bushue

Joe Bushue is a travel agent and lifelong Gresham resident who has been tolerating multiple sclerosis for 30-plus years. His column recounts some of the humorous sides of his disability and his slants on life in general. Reach him by e-mail at joebushue@live.com.

It was kind of a relief. This could be the way to really help finance my daughter’s college education. Even though it felt like it was insider trading, or at least something that you might get investigated for, I thought since I really had no idea (especially the world of high finance), I’d try it.

I had a good friend who was a successful sheetrock contractor. He told me that the company — the largest wallboard manufacturer in the world — was fighting a hostile takeover and its stock price had dropped to $1 per share. He told me the price of this stock had been as high as $80 per share but dropped to avoid the takeover. It had been on the Dow Jones board for almost 100 years, so it was no fly-by-night company. He then told me that it was an almost sure thing, and I should do what I could to buy stock in it.

Since I respected his business success, I did just that. With $100 and a call to my aunts’ broker, I plunged into the world of high finance. In my eye, I had become a player in the market.

Now I found myself reading the financial page of the paper every day to check on my “sure thing” entry into what I thought would be the successful and profitable world of wheeling and dealing. I was now part of that bastion of capitalism. The stock market! I just knew that this small (yet pretty big to me) investment was going to grow. I envisioned that someday I would be like the guy in the old movies with a phone in each hand yelling “buy” in one and “sell” in the other.

I looked at my stock’s progress every day. Every day the stock price just sat there, never changing by more than half a point at a time. After looking every day, after a month or so I looked only at the price if the paper happened to fall open to the financial page. I was starting to get depressed and bored with my “sure thing.” My visions of being an investment wizard were starting to fade.

My total stake in the world of the global economy in just six short months had grown from $100 to the staggering figure of $116! I started to realize that maybe this investment wasn’t all that I thought when I realized that after the commission to sell it was paid to the broker, I would have LOST money.

Just when I had come to the conclusion that I probably should write off my “investment” and stop dreaming of being the next Warren Buffet, I got a letter from the company that I'd tied up my money in. As I started to read the letter, the first thing I saw were the words “stock split.” I got so excited that all the feelings I had of being an investment mogul started up again. My 100 shares had grown!

With my smug feelings reinstated, I kept reading the letter, and those smug feelings left quicker than they'd returned. It seems that there had been a REVERSE stock split. I would be issued one new share for every 50 old shares. I now owned two shares of the floundering company instead of 100. On top of that, the value of the new shares totaled $84. My “sure thing” that I thought might help pay for college soon would barely be enough for postage to send away for some trade school brochures.

I guess I don’t have the patience or stress level to involve myself in the world of Wall Street. Especially when I really had no idea what I was doing. I'd better leave it to the pros. Maybe someday I might have the guts to invest in some conservative mutual funds.

In the meantime I think I’ll follow one of my great-uncle’s advice. The only “sure way” to double your money is to fold it up and quickly put it back in your wallet. I found that way it doesn’t grow much, but at least it doesn’t do many reverse splits.