Confessions of A Naughty Girl

Seekonomics: The Business of Relationship Economy

The more I date - which as of lately, has been very active - the more I realize that it's a lot like economics.

Which is too bad given that I had to audit Microeconomics 201 in college. Twice.

Give me props here. I am out, I am about, I am meeting people left and right (thank you Sweet Jesus for giving me my Mojo back, as it has been missing since 2003), and I am taking chances. I am susceptible to mindchanging far too frequently for my own good, and often find myself ranking the prospects multiple times on a daily basis with each text message, email, date, and/or phone conversation I have. Many a guy has been dumped in my head this week. Many a guy has gotten laid. Often these guys are the same people. For their sake, let's hope they're getting laid first, and then getting dumped. Or if they're a real asshole, they're probably hoping for vice-versa.

Anyway, if there's anything I've learned, it's that we need to make like Charles Schwab and look at ourselves as stock to invest in. It's most important to invest in your own stock, obviously. If you speculate that your stock will do well, you'll prosper. If you prosper, you garner even more interest. And if there's enough interest, you pay dividends. It's really just another fancy term for "getting laid a lot", but it's a small (yet thrilling) price to pay for having people invest in you.

Yet oftentimes, we realize that even with the worth of our own stock, it would be helpful to have another stock. We get to a point where we want to invest elsewhere, be it so that we can become more prosperous, successful, or even just because it's nice to invest and we can afford to do it. This is where investing in others' stock comes in.

We look at a lot of things before we make this decision. We look at stock history, we look at employee relations, we look at investor relations, and - never to be forgotten - we look at marketplace conditions. The key is to find a rising stock that you feel confident investing in the long-term. A stock that may not be the be-all, end-all stock, but is ultimately the right stock for you.


In the process, you play the game like a simple case of supply-and-demand. The more supply you have, the less demand you'll get. Scarcity - in just enough of an ample quantity - will usually drive consumer desire, or at least raise some interest. And when we feel comfortable enough to make a commitment, we buy in.

We hope for the best, but sometimes that doesn't happen. In the best-case scenario, the marketplace shifts and there's a hotter stock to invest in, so we shift our investments there. In the worst-case, Martha Stewart sells her stock, the stock falsely reports profitability, and we end up f*cked, or broke, or in jail - and possibly all three. But resiliace is the nature of the marketplace, and the beauty of it is that we can bounce back better than ever. And we often do.

But if you're fairly new (and/or bad) to the investment game, your best bet is to do as I do, which is to diversify your portfolio until you feel comfortable making a choice. You pick some short-term players, some potential long-terms to keep your eye on, and some wildcards. Then, you sit back and wait to see who performs best in the marketplace in order to optimize your investments accordingly. Sure, you have your gut-favorites. You have your Ohio States or your Walmarts (suck it, Gators). You have your Boise-State-surprise-favorites-excluding-tacky-proposals, and your pharmaceuticals in 1999.

And while I always thought it best to play it safe, I'm in the process of learning - as we do with investments - that the most favored or most reliable aren't always so. It's the stocks that are at the start of that perfect upswing that often yield the most pleasantly surprising results. I am learning that there's nothing wrong with being noncommital, or with refusing to stick to particular parameters, and to keep an open mind instead. Maybe the time will come when I decide to throw all my chips in something and hope for the best, but for the time being, I am perfectly happy with a diversified portfolio.

What do you think about that, Charles Schwab?

posted by KA @ 12:21 AM