Not quite the Under-the-Mattress Bank

I could get 5% interest in the Teeny Tots savings bank down the road eh? I get 0.25% more if I leave it there and don’t use it for the whole year! If I open an ISA with the government indexed something or other I might (or I might not) get a little bit more than whatever somebody said I would get if I did something completely different.

Sorry, but I’m not going to be able to retire on anything less than 20%.

And so I headed off to the "other place", the one place that might just give me 20% if I play my cards right and with a good bit of luck for good measure! It might just give me more if I am careful but should I take risks or inadvertently play the wrong card I might just see the initial sum playing a permanent vanishing trick. Oh, don’t take me wrong! Don’t for one minute assume that I am going to start sniffing and snorting in the local bookies over a horse or two or become an Internet Poker addict. I have also not fallen victim to some Spam email that landed in my inbox that read "send us your bank details and we will transfer the money to your account now". The one that was sent by my best mate General George Washington Balonga stuck in a prison in the Congo!

For the record I have also decided (with some due consideration) not to attempt a bank robbery or to start pick-pocketing at the local railway station. I have simply opened up an Internet trading account so that I may buy and sell stocks and shares whenever I feel like it and whenever the opportunity arises.

I was in an airport lounge the other day! As per usual I was either going to or returning from somewhere, the place not being important and this large American decided to loudly enforce his opinions to his wife, another couple near by and seemingly the whole lounge, the security officials and the check-in desk in the departure hall outside. He said "it is impossible to make money from trading shares"!

Well, blow me down right now with a feather!

He shouted loud and clear "I tell you right now and with total certainty that anybody who starts trading shares on the Internet will never, ever, ever make a goddarn cent". I couldn’t hear what his wife or the other couple were saying in response but he continued volubly, "I am telling you, it is totally impossible to make money on buying and selling shares".

Thanks, I am hearing you loud a clear!

Maybe this was a message from God!

I am positive that trading shares on a regular basis is a gamble! I did after all lose nearly 2000 pounds (not a great amount by any means but it was all that I had) during the dot com bubble burst! I am also positive that a false move, a sudden dash for a fast buck will end in tears but then what have I got to lose? If I take just a little fraction of my savings, place it into a trading account and if I do some hard research, if I gain a feel for market trends and if I buy into a rising stock rather than a falling one I might just end up with a little bit more than the miserly and very insecure 5% that I would get elsewhere.

I don’t want the Ferrari or gold plated bath taps! I don’t see myself opening up Offshore Bank Accounts and managing to not pay British tax simply because I can afford a lawyer to ‘sort things’ out! I simply want to get just a little bit more together for my retirement. I want to get just a little bit more now!

So I opened up this trading account with ease! Fill in this application form, sign here, read this very, very small print here, balk at the seemingly high fixed cost of 14 Pounds for every ‘sell’ or ‘buy’ and hey, bobs your uncle! Once all these formalities are done it would be quite within any new traders rights to run around some airport shouting "sell, for god sake sell" or to scream down the mobile phone on the number 41 bus, "buy quickly these shares are taking off, yes, a million, buy a million now, no belay that, make that two million".

And so I opened a trading account and after learning the program that this particular system uses I was ready. Well, not quite! I had planned on doing lots of research, of going to the library and reading books on the subject and to possibly buying the daily newspaper to see what was happening in the business world but for some reason I made my first grave mistake! I was simply dragged into the excitement, the gamble and hysteria and before I knew it I was begging others for more money, I was hysterically checking and re-checking falling stocks and I was biting my nails so far down that my knuckles were bleeding!

As soon as I learnt how the trading platform worked I went and bought shares left right and center and spent all of the money that I had allotted myself. I then went and found some more money and spent that as well! As the Northern Rock Bank fell to pieces as a result of the credit crunch my brain told me that it would be an excellent time to buy some shares in the other banks and so now I am part owner of the Bradford and Bingley, the Alliance and Leicester and some other Mortgage biased banks and I have watched what I have bought sink lower to come to a standstill at rock bottom prices.

Although I have not seemingly lost that much in overall value, my money now just sits there and I cannot get it out to work! There is definitely not much point having a trading account if one can’t trade and looking at the current climate I don’t think I will be shouting "sell" in the very near future. That five percent in the Teeny Tots Bank down the road seems very attractive now – so does a cash box under my mattress for that matter!

What made my brain tell my finger to press the button to buy I will probably never know! But I am beginning to think that the loud American, the angel with his views, might have been right after all!

The Mariner Articles
Articles and Tall Tales of the Sea by Ieuan Dolby