CNN COPY
Smug Stock Bores
By Richard Quest
You can spot them at cocktail parties. You can spot them on the golf course. You can spot them at restaurants around the globe. Standing, holding court to all who will listen. They pontificate about their sagacious reading of the stock market. They are the Smug Stock Bores! People who actually bought shares that had been so badly beaten down in early Spring, and are now showing percentage gains in the triple digits. I first noticed it this week when AIG announced a profit of $1.8b in the second quarter; its first profit in nearly two years. AIG shares rocketed up 20%. So why did so many of us fail to collect on this ‘free money’ from these ‘sure buys’? Hindsight. Rear view mirror investing. Call it what you will. Back in February and March we witnessed a near 30% drop in major indices in just three months. It seemed possible that this was the second, or third leg of the stock market crises. The prospect of further widespread losses could not be discounted. So most of us just got on with our lives, trying to save our jobs and forgot about putting money into that leaky bathtub known as the stock market where wealth flowed down the plug hole. Except that it is, for the Smug Stock Bores. They ploughed in. They made money. What I can’t fathom is why they did, and so many didn’t. Was it just sheer fear and a reluctance to heap more losses onto already diminished portfolios? I just don’t know. Oh. I see someone mentioned Barclays. Did I tell you that I bought Barclays back in the dark days of the crisis? At 63 pence. Today it’s trading at,..what? 358? I saw Barclays in the market and I immediately knew, well, didn’t everyone? Oh. You didn’t buy? Oh well…never mind there’s always……. Yes. I have become the Barclay’s Smug Share Bore. - End Richard Quest is a CNN correspondent based in London, host of the weekday one-hour program “Quest Means Business”. For program highlights and more, go to www.cnn.com/qmb ** Must include this when running this copy
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