This Little Piggy Went Home

GOOG Today: Not Good

In the morning, I went back and forth, agonizing about my SPY order. I changed it several times, going from setting-the-limit-where-it-would-execute, to setting-it-so-that-it-would-never-execute. I couldn't make up my mind. Finally, I canceled the order.

After lunch, I checked and the Dow was down 325, which was to say, excellent, for a gentleman of my pecuniary circumstances. My interest in buying SPY revived. I decided on setting-it-where-it-might-execute. I put an order in for 128.50, when it was trading sedately at 129.50.

For a couple of hours, my mind was distracted by work. I checked again around two-thirty and the Dow's progress had been reduced to the minus 80's. But my order had executed! I was the proud father of a position in SPY. In the fullness of time, I thought, that will be a good price.

Emboldened by this, I decided that the time had come to put some major skin back in the game. So, I re-established several of the mutual funds I sold, back in September. I sold high, and then bought back low. Most satisfactory.

That was enough work for one day, so I left the office, a little after three, and went home. On the expressway, I mused about the prices I was going to get for my mutual fund orders, there being the expectation of a little more in my envelope, from the drubbing that was in progress.

At home, my wife was watching Oprah, but she knew to change it to the Stock Channel, when I arrived. I looked at the screen and my jaw slipped its hinges and hung useless in the room. The picture was blurry, but it looked like "DOW +298". At first, I thought I had entered a parallel universe. But then I decided that the truth was even stranger than that - the Dow had gone from down 300 to up 300, while I was driving home! It's like I have to watch it every second!

Then, it hit me that SPY was up five smackers from where I'd bought it and, suddenly, I got the strength of ten Grinches, plus two. Then, it hit me that the extra discount I was expecting on my mutual fund purchases wasn't going to happen. And the strength of several Grinches went out of me.

Part of me says, be happy with the good fortune that you had. Another part of me says: Oink!