Let's Talk Investment: Obsessed with mastering games, or how I learned about the stock market

In Grade 1, we learned how to play the game Set, where you race to find a 'set' in a collection of cards.

Young me sitting at a table looking intense with another kid who looks calm. Set cards are laid out on the table. The teacher stands off to one side and says: "See which of you can find the most 'sets'. Have fun!" I'm thinking "Must solve puzzle."

I thought that it was fascinating.

Me and the other girl are looking at the cards. I'm trying to make sets out of them in my head, but none of them are working. The other girl says: "um"

I wanted to find all of the sets, even the multiple sets in the same layout. Given sufficient time, I was sure that I could find all the sets.

I'm still working in my head. The other girl says "SET!!!" I scowl.

Or any set...

Eventually the game ended, as all games do.

I'm still scowling at the few cards that are left on the table. Me and the other girl have similar sized pick up piles. The other girl says, smiling, "No sets left! Game over."

"I will make a set appear with my mind."

My performance at the game was average, which left me with a feeling of deep dissatisfaction. The game was fun, but I had not yet attained greatness at it.

I needed practise.

My mom is reading a book. I say: "We played a game at school today." She says: "Mmhmm..." and doesn't look up from her book.

I continue: "And now I desperately need to own it." My mom looks up from her book and says "Mmmhmm"

I say: "Please can you buy it for me?" My mom looks amused.

I say: "Pleeeeease" and give her big sparkly eyes.

She bought me the game, which I played incessantly.

I'm scrunched on the floor, staring at the set cards.

Sometimes other people would play with me. At first, they went easy on me.

I'm still scrunched on the floor staring at the set cards. My dad sits beside me, gesturing at a few cards. He says: "I don't know where the set could be... What's this over here?"

That changed when I turned into an unbeatable set-making machine.

Now I'm smiling and my dad looks blank. I say: "Set. Set. Oh... and set."

Now my dad has a competitive face on. We both grab for the same card at the same time and say "Set" in unison.

We both pull on the card while growling.

Eventually, being the best set player in my household got boring.

My dad looks vaguely annoyed. I say "set. set. set. set. set. set. set. set. I win. Yawn."

I was never actually THAT good. But, you know the rules: my blog, my alternate history.

Having mastered the game, it was put away in a corner and forgotten.

In Grade 5 we did a unit at my school on the stock market. It was the first and last time I ever touched on personal finance at school.

The teacher first tried to explain to a group of kids about what the stock market was.

Shadowy students look on as a teacher points to a projector screen with a pointer stick. The screen says: "A stock market or equity market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers (a loose network of economic transactions, not a physical facility or discrete entity of stocks (shares); these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately."

The teacher says: "Is that clear to everyone?" The kids say: No, nope, uh..., nada, huh?

The teacher looks slightly annoyed and points to a new projector screen that says: "Let's say that Jane owned an ice cream store that sold Peanut Buster Parfaits. Suppose you wanted to buy that store from her. But you didn't have enough money to buy it all at once. So you divided it into little bits called stocks." All of the kids have question marks above their heads.

The teacher looks annoyed and points to a picture of a roulette wheel. Now all of the kids have smiley faces over their heads.

We visited the Winnipeg Stock Exchange to see the opening bell ring.

Shadowy kids look over a group of brightly clad people standing around a large desk.

All of the brightly clad people start yelling and waving their arms around.

We fake bought a group of shares, picked from the newspaper.

I'm looking at a newspaper and I'm confused.

"Well, these columns of numbers sure are boring. I will pick... that one. And that other one..."

Still confused, now I'm looking at a sheet of paper that says: BUY. I've decided to buy shares that spell out TOTALLY RANDOM.

Then, few weeks later, we fake sold those shares and saw who made a profit.

Now I'm looking sad at a sheet that says SELL and has a lot of red numbers.

And I learned that randomly picking stocks is not a good strategy.

As a fun wrap-up, we gathered in groups to play the board game "Stock Ticker".

Me and another girl playing stock ticker at a desk. We both look mildly confused.

As with Set before, my performance at the game was average, and I was again left me with a feeling of deep dissatisfaction. The game was fun, but I had not yet attained greatness at it.

My mom says: "Christmas is coming." I look annoyed and little lightning bolts shoot out of my eyes.

Christmas did come, and I did get the game for Christmas. That year's Christmas featured guests from out of town who brought their two boys along.

I'm standing, holding the game out to my sister and the two guest boys, who all look unconvinced. I say: "It'll be fun!"

Everyone still looks unconvinced. I say: "It's better than being bored!"

The older guest says: "I am pretty bored."

The game is designed so that you can't ever buy as many stocks as you want.

The four of us are clustered around the bored. My sister looks exasperated. The younger boy looks bored. Me and the older boy look intensely at the board.

We bypassed that rule by borrowing copiously from the bank.

The older boy says: "I will borrow money." I say: "I will also borrow money."

Me and the older boy hold our hands out to my sister.

My sister, her face still exasperated, reaches behind her.

My sister shoves money at me and the older boy.

Like full-time investing, Stock Ticker is a boring game.

The younger boy rolls the dice and I read what it says: "Dividend"

The younger boy rolls the dice. The older boy reads them: "Stock goes up." I say: "Good, good."

The younger boy rolls the dice. The older boy reads the dice: "Stock goes down." I say: "I keel you."

Not everyone was as enthusiastic about the game as I was.

The younger boy has collapsed on the ground in boredom and throws the dice. The older boy reads the result: "Stock goes up." I say: "Good, good."

But all things end and eventually even Stock Ticker's other most devoted fan abandoned the game.

The younger boy is passed out with boredom. My sister is scowling. I still look intense and the older boy looks peaceful, like he is coming to a deecision.

"The game could go on forever," he said. "It's rigged so that we will win. The trick is just to keep borrowing money."

Everyone else has left. I stare at the game board.

I stared at my accumulated wealth, not wanting to stop playing the fun yet boring game. I could have kept going forever, buying more stocks with the dividends that the stocks paid out.

But the moment was over - we would never again play Stock Ticker. Yet somewhere deep down I still burned to master the game.

Then I grew up and realized that the real stock market is way more interesting. It's nice how things work out sometimes.

Let's Talk Investment

Monday, April 14, 2014

Obsessed with mastering games, or how I learned about the stock market

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