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good time to buy stock
Friday, October 5 2001
A few weeks ago the stock market was in such shambles that I decided to get in on what is probably pretty close to the ground floor. So I took out an account at Datek.com, funding my portfolio with an initial check of five thousand dollars. This was money which would otherwise have been moldering away at two point something percent interest. Given the geopolitical situation, my first interest was airline stocks, so yesterday I put in a bid for Southwest Airlines. Sometime between then and today, Southwest made an announcement that, unlike the other airlines, they wouldn't be laying off any of their employees. The resulting pummeling from the market drove their stock down somewhat below my bid and I found myself the proud owner of a portfolio that had already lost one percent of its value.
Later today I put in an order for some Anheuser Busch stock, figuring that Americans will probably be drinking more cheap beer in the coming months.
After work, I met Gretchen down at the dog run in Union Square and we walked from there into the East Village in search of a restaurant where we could dine away the cares of the day. I'm never all that fussy when it comes to eating out, but Gretchen wanted to comparison shop along 2nd Avenue. Let's see, there was a kosher meat restaurant, a Mexican place specializing in margaritas, an Irish place specializing in, well, Irish food (such as it is), and then an Italian place which probably offered a range of veal and pasta dishes. In the end it was up to me and I opted for Banditos, the Mexican place specializing in margaritas. Gretchen and I sat out in front near tables of ditzy blondes and others who didn't look authentically New York. Someone showed up with a very cute nearly-grown yellow puppy dog. Across the avenue, the sign for the Second Avenue Deli was lettered in big red faux-Hebrew characters set on a white background.
After dinner, Gretchen and I went to an Irishy sort of pub to meet up with one of her poet friends who happens to be in town (he is enrolled in the University of Iowa's graduate program). This friend, whatever his name is, had arranged to meet a number of other friends, none of whom I knew and only a few of whom Gretchen knew. In support of the value of my stock, I ordered myself a bottle of Budweiser. I was quietly pleased when one of the others who showed up later did the same. The Budweiser labels pealed easily from our bottles and I reattached mine to a large glass carafe of water, which Gretchen then balanced with the label from the other bottle. You know what it means when you peal labels off of beers, don't you? It means you're sexually frustrated. Or so I'm told.
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