E-Paper
Guest Column: Stocks and shares and making up losses
Things can get a little tough when your better half takes it upon himself to teach you a few nuances of the monetary world
When all the shopping malls and markets of the world were closed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the share market worked incessantly. Since I owe my allegiance to the brick and mortar segment, the virtual commodities being traded in the market were beyond my comprehension. Besides, my limited knowledge of mathematics and its cousin economics have always made me wary of the numerical world.
I was more like an American, who would use a calculator to add two plus two, than an Indian, doing quick mental calculations. Mathematicians Aryabhata and Shakuntala Devi would definitely not have been proud of me.
But then they were not like my lawfully wedded partner: A great optimist. He introduced me this year, as we remained locked in due to the pandemic, to the world of dividends, profit sharing and debentures with such fervour that there was no getting away from statistics.
The peace of morning tea routine was shattered by the high decibel financial chatter on TV. My soulmate would be engrossed in it, his expressions changing in tandem with market trends. I would sit like a nincompoop fiddling with my cup of tea. The only sound that moved him, besides Big Ben of London, was the market opening bell, and the monologue of the TV anchor rattling off facts and figures of various companies faster than he could breathe.
When he noticed that I was unable to make the head or tail of the market, hubby dear started lovingly explaining the workings of the share bazaar. After a few sessions I knew that upper freeze had nothing to do with the upper part of the freezer, that short selling did not have any shorts to sell, that future stock was not a career and that bulls and bears were actually human beings like us.
My weary soul would hope that the topic would change with the next cup of tea, but to my dismay, it never did. It seemed my fiscal half had taken it upon himself to teach me a few nuances of the monetary world. After a few more weeks passed by I knew the names of all the TV presenters and the number of times they had repeated their outfits in a month.
The rest of it was still Greek to me.
It had taken me years to decipher a few facts about cricket, and then dealing with money matters was a double whammy. I was feeling so quarantined in my own house.
Finally, my observant better half saw through my anguish, and so, one fine morning, brightly said, “Ok, no more fiscal talk, but I want you to know that I have been doing a bit of trading. How would it be if I tell you that you are part owner of a banking sector, that you can actually vote in a pharmaceutical company, that you have certain rights in a shipping company, and that your favourite metal, gold, is doing well at the index?”
That made a lot of sense. My eyes lit up and I said to him, “Now you are talking, man!” It sounded more glamorous than the mundane numbers on the graph.
Since then, I have become genuinely interested in the numbers game, and have started following the exponential rise and fall of the market.
The going is good and I hope to cover my fiscal deficit soon.
