Carry on, Jeeves
At digital NATION, (one of my past jobs,) I won a Land Rover Discovery Series II. Yea - I’m that guy. I sold the vehicle to the vice president and got myself a smaller car that I still drive today. With some of the extra money, I started investing in stocks since it seemed to be a smart idea at the time. One of them was Ask Jeeves (ASKJ).
Jeeves is a butler from a book called “Carry on, Jeeves”. He has an answer for everything and knows how to make things work out in the end. It is a comedy of sorts that originally appeared in 1925. I’ve heard a few of them on my XM Radio with Sonic Theater.
The company, Ask Jeeves, is a search engine that gives you results that other people have moderated. It was something new and catching on pretty quick at the time. I invested about a thousand dollars into it. I watched as my stock continued to go up higher and higher. Then I watched as it tumbled so far down that a single share of stock wouldn’t even cover the cost of the book that it was based off of.
I had long ago sold all of my remaining stock in my eTrade account due to the dot-com crash of 2000. I knew nothing about stocks and today I know less. Much to my surprise, I received a letter in the mail of a class action law suit against them. To sum up the summary, I could get nine cents per share, but pay three cents in fees. I only had a few shares of Ask Jeeves, so I might get a check for a dollar in the distant future. Maybe I should I start counting my eggs and plan for that trip to Hawaii.
November 22nd, 2005 at 12:53 am
Oh my… This is why I just plunk it in my 401K and hope that someone smarter than I am is investing it all wisely.
November 22nd, 2005 at 12:57 am
Financial Advice.. Diversify.
Don’t merely dump it all in your 401k. Put some there, at least enough for the employer match, then some in a Roth IRA. That way, you’re hedging your bets that at least one of those firms wont cheat their clients. If feeling extra paranoid, spread it around to multiple firms. Most importantly, be willing to move your investments if you feel they are threatened.
November 22nd, 2005 at 1:57 am
I diversified. I sunk some money into a mutual fund so that smarter people then me could invest the money into multiple stocks wisely.