Unraveling the latest mystery

Stocks of the 1800's and the year 2012:  I see similarities! :)~

A great mystery has been solved this 12th day of March.

For years after reading The Awakening I wondered why exactly the lovely Mrs. Pontellier chose to fling herself into the sea at the end of the novel. Now I understand: Mr. Pontellier made her do his E-trading.

Ok, ok - so the online brokers aren't quite so maddening to work with. But learning the process is frustrating enough to make anyone want to find a cliff and go out Castaway style.  

I thought I'd take advantage of today's grumpy weather by diving into the elusive investment realm known as the stock market. (Did anyone just shiver? :D) Just the mention of stocks and I think of hundreds of well-dressed brokers pooling on the floor of the Exchange, arms flailing as the Big Business tycoons watch them through their Vegas-like "eye in the sky." I always wondered, what's written on the little pieces of paper they wave determinedly in the air? Are they the last Golden Tickets? Hehe. 

A tip in the Business section of the local paper has me convinced that an Argentina-based company with a promising future will be the perfect stock to christen my bright new portfolio.  So I rev the engine of my cherry red '72 Camaro (in reality, my comfy home office chair) and jump onto the internet Superhighway, ready to burn some serious informational rubber. After two hours of research, though, my engine is broke down, and spitting out more smoke than pot puffers at a Van Halen concert. 

Limit orders? Day only stocks? Much like the auto industry, stock trading seems to have a dialect of its own. Don't get me wrong - I'm a fan of foreign language, especially the romantic ones. But I can't imagine being wooed by anything called "market capitalization".

Yet I also can't imagine a broker taking hefty commissions on my earnings. So I'm faced with the decision of spending long hours to educate myself, which still may not qualify me as a financial adviser, or let an experienced trader handle my moolah.

The problem is that I am a do-it-yourselfer. Another "male trait" I somehow inherited, you could say. I don't like to give up control - or hard-earned cash - unless I absolutely have to. Anybody else feel this way?

And so - you guessed it - I'm getting under the hood to fix her myself. In other words etrade.com and I are about to have a roll in the hay. I figure the worst that could happen is that I get frustrated and start flailing my hands in the air like those Wall Street junkies. At least by that point I'll have something in common with the real hard-hitters, which is one step above being an amateur :)  

I figure as long as I run the race tortoise style, slow and steady, I'll be able to fend for my own. Take that, you bunch of Hares.   

This is Cha Cha, signing off. :)