Four decades ago, I bought some shares
of a foreign-listed bank for RM3.75 (USD1.25). I planned to keep them permanently
for years and hopefully see them accumulate bonus issues and increase in price.
Those were the only shares I had in any stock exchange.
True to my prediction, the shares
accumulated free shares annually and increased in price. I had a sizeable
number of them after a few years. I had no intention of selling them at all but
to keep them as nest egg for my old age.
However, when the price of the share had
risen to RM30.00 (USD10), someone who knew I had them kept on pestering me to
sell them. I refused initially but relented due to the persistently uncalled-for advice. I sold the shares and received RM250K (more than USD80K) for them. I
came to regret that action of selling the shares very much as their price rose
to RM200.00 (more than USD60) within the next few months!
With the money I got from the sale of
the shares, I ventured into the local stock exchange. Being greenly new at
buying shares, I naively listened to a few so-called “experts” and bought some
speculative shares. I got terribly burnt when the market tumbled. The prices of
the shares became less than the price of the papers they were on. They have not
recovered after all these years.
The price of those particular bank
shares, which I had planned to keep permanently, is now USD53 (RM 159). I would
have accumulated a very great number of them due to the free shares given annually
to share-holders, too, had I not sold them. I would now be a “small-time”
millionaire! But I am not, no thanks to that busybody who had pestered me to
sell the shares very much earlier!
ltbs
Not
even a collapsing world looks dark to a man who is about to make his fortune.
E
B White