Monday, August 24, 1998

Kathie Lee -- Market Gooroo?
by Greg Panayotti ([email protected])

This is a little tale about how Foolish Wisdom can be spread to just about anyone, almost anywhere.

Having dinner with my parents the other night (the night after the market gave up 200 points) a discussion of the stock market ensued, with my dad saying, "Say, did you see the market today? Down big. I wonder what's next?" He knows that I am increasingly investing in the stock market (and a Fool) and wanted to see what I thought. Much to my fright, my mom added: "This morning on Regis and Kathie Lee, Kathie Lee said she had a bad feeling about the market and took most of her money out right before the market went down."

To this, I nearly choked on my peas and carrots. Imagine taking investment advice from Kathie Lee Gifford? To have her bank account is one thing, but "Buy, Sell or hold with Kathie Lee!" is completely another. I tried politely to explain to my mother that even though the market had gone down today, Mrs. Gifford's move was rather unFoolish when one considered the long-term effects of staying invested in the market. Not to mention incurring needless commissions by jumping in and out of the market at whim. I told her market timing was useless.

She looked at me rather blankly. Blankly because my parents were born in the late thirties. Before there were 401(k) plans, before IRAs, in the years after the depression. Stock-market investing was surely not the general prescription for long-term happiness. Their parents, recently arrived immigrants, were lucky enough to have enough money for food and a decent existence; stock-market investing was simply not part of the plan. In fact, the only relative to dabble in any investing (actually he was strictly a gambler) used to day-trade "hot" stocks on margin frequently. Suffice it to say he had to meet more than a few margin calls in his time.

So how was it that their son, about a third of their age and experience, was so unmoved by the 200-point drop in the market? I tried to explain using the "big picture" scenario. How the market always tends upwards. How good companies were always good buys. My dad bought it, but my mother was still skeptical. She would rather I took all my money and invested in CDs; they are, after all, safe. But I have bigger, more Foolish plans.

So, much to my delight I found an article in the Fool Port by CoHeadFool David Gardner that speaks to the Kathie Lees of the world. We travel as though in a fairy tail with the FoolCam through some market history, present to past, ("Have you noticed yet how the FoolCam can only pan back?") as everything is put in wonderful perspective. A feeling of Foolishness sweeps over me as I grin from ear to ear. I quickly print this article and show it to my mom. She reads the entire article, smirking here and there (I think she likes Peter Jennings), and suddenly she understands. She understands what all the Fools are talking about, what I've been talking about. Maybe there is some wisdom in youth. Her son has become a Fool and maybe these Fools know something Kathie Lee doesn't. Imagine that.

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