Chapter 4

Prologue 4

As part of his work, Brian spent time at home working on research into companies which his employers might be interested in encouraging their investors to buy shares in.

The family had a computer that allowed Brian to check up on figures available to the public to peruse. It was also available to all the family members for many other reasons.

Mary used it to check out recipes online as well as doing the household accounts.

Jack used it to learn all about computers themselves, how to navigate his way around the systems and how he could use the features to his advantage, oh and to play some downloaded games of course.

Jack being the inquisitive type, he used the computer when his dad wasn’t, he looked up company information, just like his dad did, but he looked at a much wider spectrum of companies, after a few weeks of this, he began noticing certain trends.

At this time, he could see his dad getting more stressed each time he came home, he didn’t know why, his parents didn’t confide in him about any home problems. Then one day he knew why, dad came home really despondent, it was while having their family time that he relaxed slightly, but only after blowing off some steam.

“If I can’t find a few new money makers for the firm, I can see them letting me go, it’s mainly due to this small recession we are in, but several of the other associates have already been terminated, I have been barely breaking even for a while, so if I don’t pull in a whale soon, I can see me getting walked out next.”

Mom tried to comfort dad, saying that he would find a real lunker to set his hook into soon, he had always been good at his job.

After our family time, dad headed for his office to do research. I followed him, he knew I was smart, but I was worried about what I wanted to talk to him about. If I suggested some stocks, bonds and companies would he ignore me? Laughing at his kid thinking he knew more than he, an adult with years of experience.

Thing was I had checked up on my findings. Many of the things I had looked into had done well, gaining in value up to 25% in some cases. I wondered if this is what he would class a boomer, oh well only one way of finding out.

“Dad, you know the other week I asked you what you did for your work.”

“Not now Jack, I have to do a lot of research and hope to find something good I can show my boss, or I could lose my job.”

“Yes I understood that from what you said earlier, but I have research information already done, which you could use if you like.” I persisted.

I had to give dad credit, he did pay attention, and he stopped working and turned to me. “OK Jack what sort of companies have you looked at?” he queried.

I listed off those companies two weeks ago that I researched, and which I had kept track of since.

I then told dad about the file on the computer, with all the research data I had collected. He pulled it up and studied it for a good while, he then switched to a pricing website and checked the amounts that I had used to collate my data.

He stopped and looked over at me, “Jack how on earth did you pick up on these companies, they are pretty diverse.”

“I just did what you showed me Dad, but I looked into a wider market. When I did, I noticed some trends, don’t ask me how, cause I don’t know just chalk it up to a blind squirrel finding a nut, it’s bound to happen once in a while. But you can see for yourself, I was right.”

“This is great work son, but unfortunately these figures already show a leveling out of the raise in value.”

“Yeah but I have more dad, look at this file.” I told him a new file I had put together, showing data on a few more companies.

He looked over my research, smiled, asked me to give him some time to look into the companies further and ushered me out of the office.

An hour later he reappeared looking much more relaxed and smiling easily. “Jack we had already been given lots of hints that you were special, but what you just showed me proves it. Thank you, now it’s my job to persuade my boss to go with these companies, and if they work out the way we think they will. You may have just saved this family a whole ton of heartache and sleepless nights.”

That was the start of my new career.

I didn’t do all dad’s work for him, but once a month I would spend some time on the computer doing research. Once I had compiled my data, dad would look it over. Do some more research, for his own piece of mind, before taking the information I gave him to his boss.

From what he told us at the supper table, almost all of my suggestions had worked out. His stock with the firm was back on solid ground and he was certain he would not be let go anymore.

This continued for six months before I came to startling revelation.

When I presented my dad with the next file of my research I had to ask, “Dad if my data is so good, why are we not doing the buying for ourselves. That would make the family way more money.”

“Yes we would Jack, if we had enough capital to make it feasible, unfortunately we don’t have enough money just sitting in the bank to go it alone. Dad explained.

“How much money are we talking about Brian?” Mom asked.

“Well you could realistically start trading with something like $10,000, but to really start to notice a return, you would need 25, hell 50 or $100,000 would be better.”

“Well couldn’t we get a loan of $10,000 and give it a try. You have your trading license; you have said that Jack hasn’t put you wrong yet.” Mom put forward.

“Yes we could, but the interest payments on the loan, would mean that the investment would have to do really well to make a profit, if the worst thing happened and Jack got it wrong, we could be out of pocket for a whole heap of money.”

“Dad you have all the figures in front of you already to see if it would work.” I put in.

“Huh, how that Jack?”

“Use the data from the last six months, try finding out if we had borrowed $10,000, what sort of return would that have been against what a bank repayment loan would have cost.”

“OK give me some time and I will do the calculations.” Dad conceded.

That started the seed of my new career, dad did the calculations, he worked out we still would have made a healthy profit after paying back a bank loan.

Dad visited his bank about getting a loan. I thought he was asking about a $10,000 loan. But nope, he had doubled the amount.

Now my work started in earnest, Now that this was the family’s future we were playing with, I took even more care with my research. My first results were on four companies. Dad looked my information over, he couldn’t decide which one was likely to do best, so split the loan money into four and bought shares in all.

Each night we would all eagerly look up the share index from the *NYSE. Checking how our four companies were doing. Two had increased but not by a lot, the other two were still at the same level we had bought at.