Chapter 7 — Applause

There was a morning when the team meeting started with applause.

Back then, SK Hynix was everywhere. The Korean chipmaker that supplies Nvidia was on the news when I turned it on and at the next table when I went to lunch. Someone was always talking about it.

The Raised Hands

“They say there are two kinds of people these days,” the manager said, grinning. “People who own Hynix, and people who don’t. Who’s got Hynix?” A few hands went up. Nobody asked what they had paid or what it was worth now. “Hey, congratulations.” The room broke into applause.

I knew it was only a way to loosen everyone up before we got down to business. I clapped along. My hands were moving, but the rest of me wasn’t. People can buy a rising stock and still lose money, and some of the hands in that room might have belonged to them. Even so, it bothered me more than it should have to be sitting on the side that kept its hands down.

Open, Close

After the meeting, Nvidia came to mind. People have been telling that story for years, the one about how buying back then would have changed your life. Back then, everyone must have been talking just like this. And the people who heard all that talk and didn’t buy are the ones telling the legend now. Nvidia was a train that had already left. Hynix felt like one pulling out right in front of me. Was I going to stand there and watch again, then spend the next few years hearing someone else’s legend?

I opened my brokerage app for no real reason. Looked at the Hynix chart. Closed it. Went back to work, opened it again. That went on all day. What if this month’s money went there instead? More than once, my finger stopped over the buy button.

When I switched to monthly investing, I also stopped keeping a trading journal. I knew what kind of daydreams start once you write the numbers down. Opening and closing that chart, I was writing a journal in my head that I no longer kept.

A Reason to Sell

In the end, I didn’t press it. It wasn’t some grand principle. I was scared of regretting it again. And honestly, I didn’t know. I had no idea where Hynix was going. So I didn’t buy.

If I bought Hynix now, how would that be any different from my day-trading years? I’d be buying because everyone said it was going up. Then I’d have to decide when to sell. Based on what? The chart? The news? The look on the face of the guy at the next desk? A stock bought on other people’s stories gets sold on other people’s stories. I had already seen where that ends. Three times.

My monthly money went into a Nasdaq index fund, and that was climbing too, which was some comfort. Hynix could hand me a reason to sell by tomorrow. One earnings report would do it, or one headline. With the Nasdaq, I couldn’t come up with a reason to sell no matter how hard I tried. America itself would have to fall apart. The way I bought had already decided the way I would sell.

The Same Question

My hands were off it. My mind wasn’t. At work I was known as the guy who studied the market, and maybe that’s why people kept asking. “You really don’t have any Hynix?”

“Nah. You invest where it’s quiet. Once everybody’s talking about it, you’re already late. I didn’t buy.” I lost count of how many times I said it. It wasn’t one question per person, either. The same people asked again a few days later, and again after that. For them it was small talk. For me it stung every time, and I was the only one keeping count. That’s how the week went.

Taking your hands off isn’t something you decide once and finish. You do it again each time someone asks, each time you hear the clapping. I had heard that you don’t grow money by investing; you invest by putting in time. That week I began to see what it meant. Putting in time also means giving the same answer, over and over, while the time goes by.

I still don’t know how much the people who raised their hands that day made. Nobody asked. That month, my account took its set amount on its set day, same as always. No one clapped.