SHARE MARKET
Daily Telegraph - September 2006

One of the many strange thoughts which popped into my head after September 11 was I ought to sell my Telstra shares and buy gold and oil stocks.

Had I done so I might now be sitting on the deck of a yacht moored in the Red Sea enjoying a manicure from a Ukrainian porn star rather than sitting behind my desk in unwashed pyjamas typing this column and wondering whether to heat a can of corn for breakfast.

T2 was a salient lesson in my susceptibility to peer pressure. Like many others my age, I stumbled out of the pub in the late-1990s at the end of my university degree and realised everyone who hadn't done arts was making huge amounts of money investing in the stock market - a mysterious institution hitherto reserved exclusively, in my mind, for men called Grant who wore fat purple ties and beepers on their belts.

Even middle-aged people who talked about “the email” and “the inter-web” were out buying Telstra shares as if they were Gold Coast condos. Ignoring this worrying omen, and blinded by a determination not to be outdone - also known as greed in some circles - I decided T2 would be my path to the superannuation I would probably never have.

By the time of the second share offer I had about $7500 in savings - almost exactly 1000 shares. It seemed like fate but it soon became apparent the share market operated on some kind of looking-glass logic that defied all my previous assumptions about economics (assumptions based, admittedly, on the ratio of cheap schooners to walking distance home).

If Telstra announced a record profit, the share price would drop 10c. If they promised to sack people and pay strange Americans millions of dollars, it rose. My image of myself as Eddie Murphy in Trading Places was being dealt a series of cruel blows.

These days I view my Telstra shares as one might a completely hopeless greyhound; I've decided to simply wait and see how badly they can do, just for a laugh.
My failed foray into Telstra shares was hardly unique. Neither is my staggering ignorance of the stockmarket. People like me don't understand that the Government ought to have separated the tech assets from the retail business or how a company making massive profits every year can still lose money.

I wish I could blame the Government for encouraging me to buy stock or the Telstra board, especially Sol Trujillo's moustache, which I find inherently sinister. Mostly, however, I just blame myself and dream fondly of the other me, the one on the yacht who trusts his instincts.

© Brendan Shanahan 2008