“Trading” in the Sports Scores for Stock Numbers
Among the many things that I remember about my paternal grandfather is a conversation that I shared at his breakfast table about the stock market. A longtime admirer of my mother’s father, I remember watching him read the stock market page in the newspaper and so as most children do—I wanted to follow in his footsteps.
I began “reading” the stock market page and unable to distinguish what I was looking at I asked him “what does this mean and what does that mean?” on a number of occasions. When the pages were filled with numbers that read 16 7/8 I would take a small calculator and figure out exactly the price of the stock.
Fast forwarding through the years my love of the stock market never faded over time. I remember a marketing class project during my freshman year of high school and we were divided into four groups and my group (which I proudly was named captain of as a freshman) won for the most money netted during a two-week span over several groups which included senior captains.
A proud “save for a rainy day” investor in several 401k’s, I have never purchased any stock in my life. As someone that doesn’t gamble with my money, despite a few games of roulette and a couple of lottery number purchases, I watched the stock market from the sidelines of life. That remained true of me until the COVID virus swept through the American landscape in March 2020.
A self-proclaimed analyst of sports statistics I have always been someone that liked to track the success of a team/individual/league over the course of many years throughout my professional life. I have always found it fascinating how a player can develop from a rookie over a 10-15-year career to see the records and accomplishments that he can have. So I took that analytical mindset towards stocks.
It began by check out the www.cnn.com business page and gathering data on the most active stocks of the day. I was looking at stocks that I could “afford” that seemingly had high potential over the long run for me. Therefore, I looked in the $5-6 and under range where I would track the day-by-day progress of the stock for a particular week.
The money for my investment came from the money that I would save from gas that I would typically spend driving back-and-forth to work. Fortunately, I was able to continue my job by working from home and so the gas money was able to be reinvested in the stock market through my IRA.
My first leap of faith purchase was Apache (APA) at $6.56, which was for 50 shares. The company netted returns quickly and has since doubled in value for me since early April. I followed that by purchasing a second oil-based company, Marathon (MRO), as the country continued to progress towards Phase 2 in many states during the virus.
With both Apache and Marathon netting me a solid profit, I re-invested in an American original, Ford (F), during mid-May. With Ford building ventilators to assist in the slowing of the COVID virus for hospitals along with several developments made by the company in electric cars it was a great long term investment. I proudly bought 35 shares of Ford and as the new Bronco and Mustang remain on the horizon the upside of the company is tremendous.
Riding the wave of success with my purchases in Apache, Marathon and Ford, I found interest in a company with great upside—according to several articles—and tracked it for several days. The fourth stock purchase followed suit with that of Ford as I bought 35 shares of the Chinese version of Tesla, NIO, at a price of $3.97. The company has grown into double figure value now, like that of Apache, which has made me a happy customer.
With NIO growing leaps and bounds I began researching companies involved in the electric car business. As the social distancing grows further and individuals looking to separate themselves from their fellow passengers the electric car market is booming. So my research led me to looking at Technip FMC (FIT) stock as well as Blink (BLNK), which play a key role in the development and powering of electric cars through their technologies.
I reached my plateau with Marathon and sold the stock in favor of purchasing 35 shares of both FIT and BLNK stock to piggyback with the success that I have seen with Ford.
A lifelong lover of sports, and in particular sports analytics and statistics, I have always loved to compete and analyze sports of any variety. COVID took away my being able to watch live sports that included my favorite teams at the time (Boston Celtics, NY Rangers) and any team that graced the television in college basketball.
The bottomline scores transitioned from ESPN, to see if the Celtics were beating the Raptors, to me checking my Apple iPhone to see how my stocks were performing on a regular basis. My IRA has been growing in the meantime and I know the second half to a key phrase—old statisticians never die, they become stock analysts.