A while back my brother and I signed up for the Robinhood app which allows for commission free stock market trades. Our dad belong to a group of friends who got together each month, played penny ante poker, and made small stock market trades together. They called it the yenom club. “Yenom” is “money” spelled backwards. It was always small amounts of money because the whole thing was for fun. I don’t know if they ever actually made any money (or yenom) but I remember them coming to our house every so often and playing poker. I assume they actually invested too.
So Ken and I decided to do some small investing through Robinhood and then we could brag/trash-talk a little back and forth concerning who is doing better. Right now he is kicking my rear. Ken won (via a “refer a customer get a free stock” thingie) a free share of Apple stock. Since this is just fun money one free share of AAPL (worth $157.10 as I write this) is a huge hurdle for me to overcome. I too “earned” a few free shares, but the highest value of any of my free shares was $4. Ken is going to have to do some truly terrible investing and I am going to have to do some remarkable investing in order for me to catch up to him. But catch up to him I will!
If I can only find a few more shares like ZAGG I’ll be able to catch up to him. This wonderful little stock has increased in value 105%. So while I’m not saying that I am Warren Buffett, I am saying that I successfully picked a stock that doubled in value in less than 5 months. Of course, it will probably all go to pot next week.
At least I am smart enough to place my retirement elsewhere.
SIDE NOTE – I have been having a blast doing small stock purchases with Robinhood. I believe my brother had been having fun too. My retirement is through index and mutual funds, so it is fun to own some individual shares of companies I like. If you want to try it and would like a free share (I get one too and thereby you would help me to get a little closer to beating my dear brother) you can do so through this referral link.
SIDE SIDE NOTE – if you aren’t saving for retirement please begin to do so. The earlier the better.
SIDE SIDE SIDE NOTE – if you haven’t frozen your credit since the Equifax hack please do so. You can find instructions from Clark Howard on how to freeze your credit here.