17
Giving up a Little Too Early
A miracle happens sometimes.
We need to give it enough time, so it can find a way to us.
-Brad Kong
Giving up is a cool and wise thing depending on the situation. I think that one efficient way to get out of any type of addiction is giving up or delaying. There is a very popular Korean community website named dcinside.com. I used to write a lot of articles there and was a sort of celebrity on that site by 2009. After all, it was pointless for me to write on that site any more at one point; the internet trolls there started offending me in diverse ways (e.g., making prank calls to my video game store at that time, etc). Still, it was hard for me to stop writing all at once since I got millions of readers for my articles free without spending any of my money.
How did I quit writing there eventually though? I always thought I would check that site later: Delaying was the key and it worked out great for me. The site was not necessary for living, anyway. I eventually ended up quitting visiting there and it has been almost 13 years since I haven’t been on that site by 2022. No professional really writes there, so it was pretty much a waste of my life as a store owner back then.
* * *
Yet there are people getting incredible losses from anything since they gave up too early. For example, the record shows that the Jewish writer Anne Frank, who wrote The Diary of a Young Girl, passed away only when she was 15 in Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp in Germany in 1945. Surprisingly, it shows that she could have been saved by the English army if she could survive only a few weeks longer. These types of things happen everywhere all the time. This could be the reason why some people stay poor as well.
* * *
There is a group of young, but fat women in Korea; they call themselves feminists; Koreans call them twisted feminists in general (Koreans specifically call them Maegal in Korean). Coincidently, I notice that many women in this group are obese; their favorite celebrities are plump, too. Regardless, from my perspective, they seemed to give up on themselves too early: They gave up on being a pretty girl, meeting a nice guy, starting a family or whatever (which is fine I guess). Still, I feel like they gave up their entire lives too early; abandoning their bodies to be in whatever shape (fat or whatever) is merely one sign from their neglect: Negligence is from losing hope. I honestly do not believe that they can be happy even as singles on their own.
* * *
There is a company named CVR Partners; it makes nitrogen fertilizers for agriculture and its stock ticker (symbol) is UAN. I bought 120 shares of this company stock for $10.30 each in 2015; it was a great dividend stock back then and I spent about $1,235.00 to buy all those shares. The bad news was that, suddenly, the stock price dropped 90% out of the blue in 2017; an even worse thing was that the company did a 10-to-1 reverse split. As a result, I had only 12 shares of that stock with a 90% loss from price drop for five years since 2017: To break even, the stock price had to go over $103, which seemed to be impossibly high back then (after reverse split, 120 shares for $10.30 each became 12 shares for $ 103 each). It was one of those failed investments for 7 years since 2015, after all. I just did not sell those off since there was no point. And then, all of a sudden, a miracle happened.
The price of this UAN stock suddenly jumped up to $107.25 on 1/18/2022 (out of nowhere). It was way over $103, so I sold all of these shares on that day; I made +$52.82 profit, conclusively. I heard that fertilizer could not be imported from China any more due to some trade disputes with that country. That is why this U.S. fertilizer company stock jumped up only for a few days. I am glad I did not give up too early and sold them all for 90% loss. Waiting for 7 years after the purchase of the stock had been too long, though.
This chapter is a little lengthy, so you can skip it to the next chapter after reading only bold sentences and summary. Lately, the novel titled Pachinko written by one Korean author has been a big hit and a series of dramas based on that book was released by Apple TV. I read that the book describes life stories of four generations of Korean immigrants. I thought my life story is as good as theirs and I can write an epic chronicle about my life once. I hope you will enjoy this, especially if you are a fan of memoirs. I made a small fortune ($20,000) out of PBI stock in January, 2021 and I will tell you what exactly happened.
I
Before starting this chapter, I would like to make sure that I am not writing this to blame a company or someone. I just would like to explain what happened to me, so I hope you will not make the same mistake. We will see how I made a small fortune eventually out of a long loss. Also it would be great if some companies can learn something from this as well. This is my honest experience as an investor. I do not know why some people do not change things in their company for a decade while others change things too frequently.
* * *
There is an American technology company called “Pitney Bowes” in Connecticut, USA. It is a publicly traded company and its stock ticker is PBI. This cooperation is best known for an online postage machine called “SendPro”. If you sell an item online, you can print out postage with this machine and drop the package at the post office. Simply, that machine had made my online sales much easier.
I had invested a lot of money in this company from 2011 to 2020: Simply, I had owned a $65,000 amount of PBI stocks by 2020 (about 6,300 shares). I had bought this company's stocks little by little whenever I had chances or extra money for almost nine years.
I thought this company had a bright future in the beginning: Online sales had helped my retail video game store from the start all the way up until it was closed in 2014. I opened my shop in 2006 and we had made a lot of used items sales on Amazon, eBay, Half.com, etc. Before Pitney Bowes made delivery tracking systems integrated in PayPal or eBay, keeping USPS tracking numbers on receipt papers was an extreme hassle.
* * *
Before 2009, I had to go to the post office and wait in line whenever I sold an item, mostly on eBay. If I chose to use certified mail for my packages at the post office, they used to give me tracking numbers on green receipt papers at that time. After selling dozens of items, I didn't even know which tracking number papers are for which items I sold, exactly.
The biggest problem was fraud buyers. There were dishonest buyers online and they lied to eBay or Amazon that they did not receive an item they bought. These online companies ask sellers to provide tracking numbers showing proofs for the deliveries to those customers’ addresses. If sellers could not find the exact tracking numbers on papers, they took money out of sellers’ accounts. A lot of amateur sellers stopped selling online for this reason almost until 2009.
This happened to me a few times as well (about 3 times by 2009). I just did not have the luxury not to sell online. I invested so much money in the retail store already by 2006 and the retail store itself did not do very well all along. Store rent was relatively cheap ($1,200 a month by 2014), but the location did not bring us enough foot traffic. Well, you get what you paid for, right? Still, I had good feedback on eBay and Amazon, so I was able to make more than reasonable sales throughout 8 years: Often online sales were twice bigger than store sales in many months. But the problem with fraud buyers still remained by 2009.
After Pitney Bowes invented the computer delivery tracking system for online sellers, I did not have to worry about those fraud buyer problems any more. Its software lets me print out postage on eBay and PayPal sites automatically with my own computer and printer (not on Amazon, though). FYI, these eBay and PayPal were basically the same company since PayPal was spin-off from eBay in 2015.
The tracking numbers were saved together with items sold on eBay after 2009. I could easily provide tracking info to eBay by clicking a link next to an item, so disputes resolved with frauds amicably. Also good buyers have been able to check delivery status of their items by clicking tracking numbers as well. Tracking is merely a natural part of online purchase nowadays, but it was innovative technology for sellers at that time. In general, inquiry emails about delivery status have decreased dramatically after 2009. That was a great for time saving since I had to work by myself in the store most of the time.
* * *
I remember that I sold a lot of my items particularly on Amazon in 2007 and 2008. No site had that kind of postage generation and tracking integrated system for small sellers like me before 2009. So I used the “Stamps.com” service separately with a $15 a month subscription fee then (Stamps.com merely copied Pitney Bowes Technology, after all). I did not like Stamps.com very much since they upgraded software once in a while for any reason and it made my computer freeze unnecessarily.
But I remember that the Pitney Bowes software integrated in eBay had been always working smoothly. And it was free with eBay sales (no subscription fee). As online sales literally saved my store, I thought everyone might do online sales someday. “As it saves my life, it can save others’ lives as well,” I thought the company had a strong bright future.
I invested originally $100 for this company in 2011. PBI was one of S&P 500 company stocks back then until 2014. And it came with the highest dividend among S&P 500s as well (I remember it was up to 12% a year at one point). I probably invested up to $30,000 by 2015 (I had got my dividends continuously every three months). And I finally ended up investing $65,000 on PBI stock by 2020. FYI, this stock had always come with dividends until I sold them all in January, 2021.
* * *
But I was at risk of losing -$40,000 in 2020 since the company suddenly did not do very well particularly after 2015. It sounds ridiculous, but that was the reason why I ended up owning so many PBI shares by 2021: I had bought more and more shares simply because the stock price had kept dropping every year. It is called “averaging down”: Some buy more shares when a stock price gets cheaper. An average purchasing price of a particular stock can get lower this way, after all. Let me explain this concept briefly, so everyone can understand this book.
For example, let us say that we bought 100 shares of A company stocks for $500: The average purchasing price of the stock is $5 a share ($500/100 shares = $5/share). Then, let’s suppose the company did not make a lot of profit, so the stock price dropped to $3. If we buy 100 more shares, our average purchase price becomes $4 now: We have 200 shares of A company stock with $4 average cost a share ($500 + $300 = $800 and $800/200 shares = $4 a share).
Sometimes, I think people do this when they have faith in a particular company. They may believe, “The stock price of this company will go up to $20 someday. I will make more profit by lowering the average purchase cost now.” In my case, more likely I did it because I believed I could get out of loss at least by lowering my purchase price. I thought I could sell it all with a little profit someday even though I had suffered from the loss from 2015 to 2020.
* * *
I remember the Pitney Bowes did just fine until 2014: The stock price was up to $28, then. I thought that I was a visionary investor (the next Warren Buffett). I was happy, optimistic and invested about $30,000 on PBI by 2015. But when the stock price dropped to $12 in 2016, all I hoped was getting out of the investment without loss. I was desperate and bought more and more shares whenever the price dropped even more gradually.
These were risky actions since we can lose everything if the company files a bankruptcy. Some people commit suicide for this reason: Some lose all. A $65,000 is still a huge amount of money to me (or to anyone) as I have a portfolio having just little over $600,000 even now in 2022. It was even a bigger amount of money at risk then since I remember that my portfolio was about $420,000 by 2020.
* * *
The latest CEO came to the company in 2012 and the company stock price had been downhill since 2015. Apparently, the tracking system was invented long before he came to the company. I can see that he is still the CEO of the company as of 2022. I personally do not understand how he has managed to keep the position in the last ten years: I heard that he always gets a 90% approval rate with votes at the annual stockholder meeting. It is about a $600 Million market capital sized company and hires 10,000 employees. I absolutely have no idea about how politics works in that company. All I know is I had miserable five years since my stocks had dropped crazily after 2015.
I checked a lot of information while I had suffered from the $40,000 drop out of the $65,000 investment by 2021. One thing I noticed was the CEO still had gotten paid $10 million salary including benefits every year despite the long term loss: I thought it was a lot of wage considering the stock price drop. Probably his salary had been $1 million a year, but the huge benefit had been added on top of it. He was certainly not the type of a person willing to get paid $1 a year like Steve Jobs or Donald Trump. He had been paid a lot regardless if the company was suffering or not. I ended up making $20,000 profit only thanks to “Wall Street Bet” from Reddit (I finally wrote “Thank you post” to them in 2022), but it could have been a big time loss for me that I would never be able to get over for my entire life.
* * *
While the stock price had been in a downturn in general, it got particularly ridiculous after Covid pandemic hit in 2019: The PBI stock price was as low as $1.80 in 2020. I understand it was not completely the PBI’s fault: I know most company stocks crashed in the beginning of 2020. But the PBI stock price was up to $28 in 2014. As a result, it had been like over 90% gradual drop for the 6 years until 2020.
But, miraculously, I ended up making about $20,000 profit out of selling all the PBI stocks in 2021. I sold out all the 6,300 shares on 1/26/2021 (Tuesday): I remember that it suddenly went up to $14 in only two days (1/26/2021 to 1/27/2021). You should be able to check the records. This is surprising since PBI stock price went back soon and it is only $3 even now in November, 2022.
This is the key point of my PBI investment: “-$40,000 possible loss (2020) Vs + $20,000 actual gain (January, 2021)” You can see there was a $60,000 difference over the course of just a year: I was losing $40,000 out of the $65,000 PBI investment in 2020, but I ended up making +$20,000 profit in 2021. I am glad I did not give up one year early (that almost happened, though). And I believe this could have happened if I didn’t choose a dividend stock (PBI always has come with about 3% dividends). It was extremely lucky to get out of that loss in general.
* * *
When I think about it, everything started with opening the video game business in 2006. At that time, I remember that I happened to watch the news about an old lady in Lake Forest, IL in 2010. Her name was Grace Groner and she left $7 Million as inheritance when she died in 2010: It shows that she only bought three shares of Abbott Laboratory stock in 1935. It made me interested in investment in dividend stocks (by the way, Grace had lived until 100, so she fits my topic in Chapter 25).
Along with the news and several financial books I had read back then, my business eventually put me into PBI stock purchase in 2011. Whenever I sold an item on eBay, the shipping postage label showed the Pitney Bowes logo on top. Without eBay sales, personally I would have not known that there is such a company: There would not have been +$20,000 capital gain in 2021 or an extra +$8,000 dividend income from 10 years’ investment on the PBI stocks from 2011 to 2021.
I will tell you why buying a stock paying dividends played an important role for my gains later on. Personally, I think that it is crazy to buy a stock without a dividend when there is one with it. Do not buy a stock as if we gamble. We need some safety nets: Dividend income. I suggest people address stock investment as if they invest in saving accounts. That is my advice especially for beginners. First of all, let me get back to 2006 and tell you what happened in detail in chronological order.
II
As I mentioned in previous chapters, I graduated from college in March, 2006. I have already been a power seller on eBay since 2003. I received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology. My GPA was only 2.6 out of 4.0, so I decided not to go to graduate school (more likely, I was not able to). I decided to go to Chicagoland to start a business instead of New York City since my girlfriend studied in a doctorate program in Champaign, IL. I told you where I met her already in Chapter 12: She eventually gave birth to my daughter later in 2010 (my wife now in 2022).
Before leaving Buffalo, I sold virtually everything from my rental apartment via Craigslist.com. It was easy since a lot of new college students were looking for used furniture or TV for the new semester. One Ukrainian girl contacted me and brought some cash with a lot of her friends. I remember one of her friends was a biology instructor at University of Buffalo.
After finding a new apartment in Rolling Meadows, IL, I moved everything from Buffalo by car (Hyundai Elantra). I thought the apartment was a little too expensive while the size is also bigger than I need ($900 a month in 2006). But I did not have much choice since I did not know anyone at all in Chicagoland. It was a cold winter in March and I had to find some place quickly.
I did not rent a U-Haul truck when I moved into that place, then. The distance is about 500 miles between Buffalo and Chicago. Above all, I was not sure if I could drive a big truck for such a long distance. Secondly, I did not have much extra cash to spend on renting a truck. So I decided to use my car twice to bring everything left to Rolling Meadows from Buffalo. I brought my cat on the second trip: I remember that he was very tired in his cage and slept a lot after that 10 hour trip. And I remember I had back pain for about two weeks because of too much lifting heavy stuff. I remember I bought a new huge table from Meijer supermarket and assembled it for my new place. I bought a new mattress as well and brought it myself by car to save some money on delivery charge, too.
I was all by myself and had to do everything on my own. I have been through a lot of difficulties and hardships even though I have wealthy parents (I don’t think I can write everything in this series). I still remember that I saw one Mexican lady moving a broken down car on her own on a busy Arlington Heights road in 2009; she struggled, but her car hardly moved. I cannot imagine what really poor people have to go through. Maybe that motivated me to write this book.
* * *
The apartment was pretty looking initially, but turned out to be a bad one since the management had raised rent every year and I found mice a few times inside. And the rent did not include any utility at all. It is not that they raise rent because of inflation. They raise it because tenants tend not to move out once they settle. Not only is it bothersome for residents to move out, moving out costs money, too. Pretty much every landlord is a little deceptive in that sense. And this is why we have to buy out even a small condo with full cash no matter what instead of going for a bigger house with a mortgage. Unless we own something completely, these types of deception (raising rent as if there is inflation all the time) will never stop. We can keep leaking money until we get out of rent or mortgage.
And that apartment complex had window stickers for resident cars. It was my fault that I did not take it seriously and did not attach it. Just like in Buffalo, they had plenty of spaces to park, anyway. But the stupid Redmon towing towed my car out of the blue one night. It was simply immoral since there was no assigned spot in the complex and plenty of free spaces available for everyone: This company was no good and they did it only for money (the miserable $65 in 2007); what they did was not helpful for anyone. When I visited the apartment office the next morning, they had no idea of who towed what overnight. I believe I spent $100 totally only to pay for a taxi and towing charge: Pointless spending.
I still remember the taxi driver had a very hard time finding the towing company, then. I felt sorry for him. He was a middle aged man, but definitely a beginner driver. Navigation was not available for most taxis in 2007. He said it is OK not to pay, but I paid him since he tried hard.
* * *
I remember that it took about two months for me to find the “ideal” location for my store. The web site, “Loopnet.com” was truly helpful. I drove around everywhere in the beginning of 2006, but soon I found it was pointless. An empty retail space is always available somewhere. I did not know which one was good. I read a book titled The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting and Running a Coffee bar at that time. It gave me the idea of compatible businesses: “We should open a business close to related businesses (so these businesses can help each other). We cannot open it in the middle of nowhere.” I ended up opening the video game store right next to an internet gaming cafe thanks to that book. I feel sorry for Borders bookstore as I had to return the book after reading since I was pretty much broke, then.
In May, 2006, I opened my video game shop at a local strip mall in a Chicago suburb. One lawyer owned the strip mall and the price of the entire plaza was about $5 Million. It was huge, but in a slow location. I did not like him much while I owned my business (no tenant did). But I cannot hate him necessarily now since the management suggested the lowest rent in Chicagoland ($1,200 a month by 2014). Without it, my business would not have survived for eight years.
I am not sure I will go into more detail, but my rent dropped down to $1,100 a month in 2012 when the management bought the J exercise business right next door. The business made incredibly loud noise for aerobics (outdated fitness exercise in my opinion). Those three lady owners were honestly the most stupid people I have ever seen. They made only a lot of noise instead of making money. They charged very little subscription fees to members, but they never had enough customers for five years. Their situation was like me in Chapter 45: Making only enemies instead of money. Only difference is I was 29 then and these women were in their 50s in 2012.
* * *
My poor mother gave me $30,000 initially for my business start-up in 2006. She has been wealthy, but too generous for her two stupid sons (one is me, obviously). I got two months free rent out of three years of the first lease contract and spent most of the money to set up the store. I had no idea about wholesalers, but found one within driving distance in Elk Grove: It was a sort of miracle since America does not have that many video game wholesalers to begin with. My business saved a lot of money by not paying delivery charges since we were able to pick up new games on our own.
I thought that I would make a lot of money out of refurbishing used games if I could get used video games reliably: How to make that happen could be owning a small store. A small store can be a marketplace for customers to trade used games before buying new games (just like Gamestop). I know I made way more profit selling used games than new ones on eBay.
The size of my store was about 900 square feet and the initial rent was $1,200 a month in 2006. As I said, I opened it right next to an internet café where a lot of guys gathered to play PC games (e.g., World of Warcraft). Again, it was a good business plan to locate my business right next to a compatible one. The cafe was eventually closed out in 2012 and I suddenly saw a huge decrease in foot traffic. I still feel grateful to Eddie who found the gaming place originally in 2004. Not only was he a great business man and neighbor, he was a great customer, too. He brought his uncle and nephew to our store and they bought several video games: Usually Nintendo DS Pokemon series. I visited the Sushi restaurant his parents owned to give his family some business. I truly appreciate that we had a more profitable 6 years out of 8 thanks to him.
* * *
Basically, this is how we made money in our store. We sold a lot of brand new games, accessories and consoles (systems) for little profits: I remember the profits were no more than 10% for brand new items. This was probably similar for all the game retail stores. But the more important thing was that we accepted used games, accessories and systems for store credits. Customers traded in used stuff they did not want any more and got discounts on new items they bought. After cleaning those used stuff, we sold them for much higher profits than brand new items we buy from wholesalers: We often sold used items online.
We made about $7 to 8 profits whenever we sold a brand new game by 2014: We used to get Xbox 360 or PS3 games for $51 from a wholesaler in Elk Grove, Illinois. And we sold them for $57.95 + tax (which is $63 after tax) even though most other places sold those for $59.99+tax: We sold $2.04 cheaper than even Walmart or Target (deep discounters), not to mention GameStop.
Some people suggested that it was ridiculous we were selling things even cheaper than big corporations (e.g., Bestbuy, etc). But I thought that it was fair since we obviously paid less rent and had no advertisement cost. We had customers’ visits only via word of mouths. We had coupon magazine advertisements in 2006, but these turned out to be a complete waste of money: I hate the Indian Pizzeria owner who suggested that. I am not sure if he had any monetary gain out of the referral, but it definitely caused loss on me. I decided to spend those few hundred dollars on game discounts instead of advertisements and we did it until our store was closed out in 2014.
Personally, I just did not feel comfortable charging the full $59.99 to gamers. I knew it could be a lot of money to some people. The strip mall had a low income apartment complex right on the back. I think I was nervous that we might lose regulars if we charge in full. Still, we did not see a lot of customers even with $2.04 discounts on new games since the store location was a bit invisible and obsolete.
* * *
Before moving on, let me explain to you how the store credit system worked exactly in that business. Let us say that there is a new game selling at $60. If a customer wanted to trade in one used game, we could value it for $10 store credit if we could sell it for $15 on eBay ($5 profit). Then, the customer pays the rest $50 for the $60 game because he traded in one used game: It is a $10 discount on a new game since the person traded in a $10 used game. It was just like GameStop. But, there were three differences from these competitors: GameStop, Play and Trade, etc.
First of all, we suggested way more credit than those corporations. With careful calculation, I concluded that we do not lose money even if we give out enough store credit on used games which customers traded in. Especially when they buy a used game after trading used games, we made the maximum profit. It was better for us to just keep the reputation of generous store credit by giving out a lot. The reputation was an advertisement itself.
Secondly, we did not have a cash option for trade in: “More credit, but no cash” for used game trade in. Simply, customers could not sell games for money while they could use them only as store credit for discounts on new items. That was the best store policy I had ever made since those street craps for asking for more cash disappeared magically. Before that policy in 2007, there had always been arguments about cash amounts. It was pointlessly tiring. More importantly, the store had kept losing a lot of money to give out cash and never made money before 2007. After setting up a “store credit only policy (no cash for used games)”, arguments disappeared and cash drains in the store stopped as well. I noticed that we ended up having more quality gamers as our customers, too.
Thirdly, we sold refurbished games after cleaning the used games which customers traded in. We had two Azura disc cleaning machines: One in the store and the other at home. This company used to build CD DVD cleaning machines with price tags up to $10,000. We had two of $600 machines by 2014 and suggested $1 disc cleaning service as well: That was popular. We always cleaned used game discs, changed dirty game cases and sealed those with new plastic shrink wraps: These looked like news. We sold those as refurbished games, but the prices were the same as just used games in other stores.
* * *
I still remember one of the worst customers we had was one Nigerian guy. He was a middle aged short guy and had strange habits to buy games at aggressively discounted prices and returned all for full prices in a couple of weeks. He gave me a lot of headaches. In the return case, customers only can trade in those for credits only, but he did not understand and insisted his way. I re-wrote all the store policies only for him. I almost called the police on him and it could have been the first time I called the police even though no one stole anything. What a shame on him. I even went to his apartment only to ask not to come to my store again. This is a great shame since most stores try hard to get customers. “What kind of monster are you since the store owner seriously begged you not to come? Why do you cause this much trouble even in a small, trivial local store?” I lived in an apartment close to my store then and he lived in the same apartment complex where I lived.
I am still not sure of his exact job, but he obviously had a small income, but large expenses: Two kids, two cars, two bedroom apartment rent (which was much bigger than my one-bed rent), smartphones, etc. I will never understand this type of person. What is the point of having an argument to see who is going to call the police first at a game store? I told him that I will call the police if he does not walk away. He said he will do it first for the buyer's right or something. Why didn’t he just walk away and save some money since he certainly earned a meager wage? What is the point of going through all that confrontation to begin with? To spend money? He obviously cannot make money out of buying games. Probably, he has been living in that low quality apartment with a huge rent in the last 9 years. If rent is a waste of money, his larger two bedroom rent was a bigger waste. There is no cure for these types of idiots.
III
I explained how our online sales worked with the Pitney Bowes system in the beginning of this chapter. That was the core part of this investment disaster in 2020. I was on the verge of losing about -$40,000 in my portfolio thanks to investment on Pitney Bowes stock in 2020. I had four painful years from 2016 to 2020.
This could have been my first major loss if a miracle did not happen in January, 2021. I have lost money before, but none of it has been a big amount. Currently, I have 100 company stocks and 42 company bonds in my portfolio as of November, 2022. I think about 10 companies had filed bankruptcies and the total loss had been less than $8,000 in the last ten years. I have gotten about $20,000 in dividends and interests a year in the past 11 years, so that loss was not really significant (acceptable). But a $40,000 loss solely on one company stock could have been really big.
For your information, I have bought most company stocks for 100 shares per company except PBI. Now I buy more than that nowadays, but it has been like this for quite a while, especially before 2015, so the loss has not been that big. In 2020, my situation was like I would be more than happier if I could get my $65,000 back without loss. Instead, I got $85,000 back from the PBI investment on January 26th in 2021 (+$20,000 profit). Do you know what happened on that day?
There is a community website called Reddit and it has a subgroup called “Wall Street Bet (r/wallstreetbets)”. Three million members were there in 2021 even though I heard more than 11 million members are there now in 2022. What I heard was that these investors had united all their powers together and focused on buying certain stocks for some reasons I do not understand completely; sometimes, they call it “pumping” or “short squeezing”.
One day, these three million members decided to focus on buying Pitney Bowes stock out of the blue. I am still not sure why they decided that (I asked around and no one knows why). $5 PBI stock then suddenly became $14 only for two days starting from 1/26/2021. This was like a miracle to me. I could not believe my eyes when I checked the Dow graphs on screen on that day: “What is going on?”
I was relieved for a moment, but I had to make a quick decision: “Do I have to sell all the PBI shares now? Or wait longer?” Fortunately, I decided to sell all the PBI shares as soon as I saw the profit hit about $20,000. It was 2:30 PM in Central time (Chicago), which was 30 minutes before the stock market closed. I would not have made that decision unless PBI stock had been a headache to me for over five years.
And, above all, I am glad I was not very greedy on that day. I realized that my decision was correct only a couple of days later. Suddenly I saw that the PBI stock went down back to $5 to 6 ranges and it has been like this in the last two years now ($3 to 4 in November, 2022).
I am glad I did not give up on PBI stock too early when all my friends and online trolls recommended selling them. They all said there is no hope for the company and I can get $0, which means $65,000 loss. I am glad that I stuck to my own idea. Also I am glad I did not hold on to the stocks too long to get more profit. I thought that $20,000 profit was plenty, especially considering these shares were a five years old headache: I knew that was “enough”. Conclusively, I am glad that I sold all out when I had a little chance on one day in January, 2021.
I am not writing this to blame the company or the CEO. It is over and I do not plan to buy the stock again unless something happens like the management retirements. Maybe the company can learn something from my story to improve the situation. I like to thank Wall Street Bet one more time and wish my best luck to all the members.
IV
Here is one question: Did I really make money because I was patient? That answer is “No”: Absolutely not. I strongly believe the secret was that I bought “dividend” stocks to begin with. I will talk more about this in the book titled UnBrokable* X later on. But, if this is alright, let me give you some basic ideas now.
Dividend to stock is like interest to the bank. If we have some money in a bank, the bank will give us interest every month. Interest and dividend are basically the same things: I would say that only the names are different, primarily. When stocks give out interest like savings accounts in a bank do, they are called dividend stocks. Only difference is that banks give out interest every month, but stocks give out dividends usually every quarter, which means every three months. So we get most dividends every three months although some give them out once a month or once a year depending on stocks.
Not every stock is a dividend stock. According to my experience, usually about half of stocks in the entire markets are dividend stocks. This rate changes all the time as new companies come out or old companies go away. These are the examples of dividend stocks in 2022: Apple, Pfizer, Wal-Mart, Intel, AT&T, Target, Microsoft, etc. And these are non-dividend stocks as of now: Tesla, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Netflix, etc.
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Personally, I only buy dividend stocks. If a stock of the company I am interested in does not have a dividend, I buy bonds of the company, instead: The examples are Google (Alphabet), Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, etc. Their stocks do not have a dividend, but their bonds have reasonable interests. Bonds give out interests, which is the same as dividends. As I said, basically, only the names are different.
In my case, if a company does not have a dividend stock or bond giving out interest, I just do not buy anything from the company. For example, Facebook stock does not have a dividend nor the company has a bond. I have never bought anything from the company. FB stock price dropped crazily this year, anyway.
Why are dividend stocks important? In my opinion, investment is like we are putting money that could have been in the bank into stocks. Let us say that we bought $1,000 of “A” company stock. We could have put that $1,000 into a bank and gotten interest every month safely. There is no real reason to risk losing that money even a little bit in the stock market.
Alternatively, if we buy dividend stocks, we get dividends as if you get interests in the bank. Often those dividends are bigger, if not much bigger, than bank interests. For example, Annaly Capital stock (NLY) gives 11% dividend a year while bank interest is 3% a year nationally in 2022: That dividend was like 3 times bigger than an average bank interest. Then I believe it is worth investing in the stocks and risking money. Annaly is the biggest mortgage REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) in America now and considered a safe investment. If we can buy that NLY at some lowest points on some days, we can make money out of both stock growth and dividends. (It was only $6.65 on 4/23/2022)
Some people say that non-dividend stocks are growth stocks and better than dividend stocks: In my view, these people are idiots or gamblers. A stock which is growing is a growth stock: Not having a dividend does not guarantee a growth of any stock. I notice that usually poor people bet on only stock prices without considering dividends. It is a well known fact that rich people are more likely to go for dividends. I learned that there is no cure for poor gambler internet trolls.
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I could not have endured five years of depression with PBI stock price without getting their dividends (3-6% a year for 10 years). I gave PBI stock enough time for price recovery since I am getting dividends, anyway. The $65,000 I put into PBI stocks would have been in a bank to give me interests. Instead, I had gotten interests in the name of dividends from the company. There was nothing I had been losing only because of the PBI stock price drop. I did not have any plan to sell it any time soon as long as I get dividends.
While I had gotten dividends for a long time (10 years), the stock price jumped up for one day and I made +$20,000 profit out of my hopeless investment. Sometimes, we have to give enough time to a miracle, so it can find a way to us. I strongly believe it is the right approach to put money into dividend stocks as if we do in savings accounts. At least, I think we should do it with most of our money unless we are crazy gamblers.
V
Originally, I did not decide to write a book because of money in April, 2022. An important idea hit me one day: “What would happen to the world 500 years later? People will not even notice that I existed then.” I guess that I did not want to be forgotten completely. I thought I could write about my own stories at least while I am still alive. Besides, my desire to get out of the hellish kitchen in the nursing home got particularly stronger in the beginning of 2021.
I had problems with my job at a nursing home for a couple of years from 2020. There was one short Mexican sous chef giving hard times to everyone. He was just a poor cook himself after all, so I can ask him to bring my food if I have a chance to see him outside later on. Another problem was management interrupted me moving forward to a better job inside the nursing home.
I had the medical coder license, but they never had really an opening for that job for years. I had the pharmacy technician license as well, but the small pharmacy store in that nursing home was owned by a different company called Symbria and they did not have an opening, either. The dining service I worked at had kept preventing me from transferring to the wait staff department. They tried to use me only as a dishwasher. Not only is this not right, but not even legal. I felt like I was trapped in a swamp there. The dishwasher job was way harder than the waiter even though people get paid exactly the same in both ($16.24 an hour in 2022). I thought holding me in one place was ridiculous.
Luckily, I have been in a situation to get enough dividends and interests from my portfolio every month by 2022: At least, enough for living (about $2,500 a month or more). My wife has been working as well and I have only one child to support. I thought I could try to be a writer since that gives me more meaning. People may find my book at the library 500 years later and recognize that I had lived on earth once. I thought it is better for me to start a little early before turning 50; I still have 51 years left if I live until 100. Who knows if I can make more money with writing as well, anyway?
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I did not plan to publish a hardcover book in the beginning. It was not in my interest to charge more money to readers. But I found three reasons why I may keep publishing a hardcover version also.
First of all, there are readers who prefer or even buy only hardcovers. I always buy paperbacks mainly because it is a little cheaper. But we do not know everyone’s preference and I did not want to lose a reader for that reason. I assume it pays about the same whether I publish a book in hardcover or not. I can charge more, but it costs more to publish hardcovers, too. Regardless, I can simply suggest more choices for readers.
Secondly, I learned that hardcover books last longer. Believe it or not, I found that books have expiration dates and it shows that some hardcovers last about 50 years while some paperbacks last 20 years. I hope my book can last longer, so someone can also find it long later.
Thirdly, expensive hardcover prices make paperback prices look cheaper. I know it is not my primary concern to get financial gain out of publishing, but I kind of hope that more people will read my books. I think they can buy my paperbacks with less resistance to the price barrier.
Fourthly, I can use up my ISBN a little faster. I plan to buy 100 ISBNs all at once since that discounted price is way cheaper (1 ISBN is $125 while 100 are $575 in 2022). I am not sure if I can write 100 books any time soon. Maybe I can use one more for a hardcover version when I have 100 in hand. For your information, we need two ISBN for a hardcover and a paperback respectively in publishing.
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Maybe some people wonder why I try to write a thick book. You will see my final collections will be obviously thicker than others. When I checked Amazon's top seller list, I noticed that a lot of them are thick books. For example, the horror novel titled IT written by Steven King is 1,150 pages. I am not a famous guy: Honestly, I don’t think I can write way better than others. But I thought I can write more than others at least.
In a sense, I have done this for everything throughout my life. I had never shown any excellent talent in a field or achieved a superior goal for my whole life. But I think I have tried harder than others at least: I usually have done more. If this series is successful, one of the reasons why would be simply that I have written more than others. I am good at finishing things completely for a long period of time.
Talent can be important. But I believe luck comes to a person who prepares and tries harder. Readers may choose a thicker book not only because they can get more knowledge with less money, but also they know this writer has written more and tried harder: Again, I am not famous yet, so I have to write more at least. Also, I think having a long term vision and giving enough time for luck to come to us are important. Maybe that is why I was able to make a profit out of a fallen company stock or have enough savings to support my family without working at a relatively young age.
Now it is May, 2022. The news said that a lot of people started coming out of their houses for fun even though 300 people die a day because of COVID 19 (Coronaviruses). I still stay at home mostly nowadays and wait for my fourth COVID vaccination. I don’t think it is over until it is over. I suggest not to give up too early or move too fast: I strongly believe that a little bit of patience can make a huge difference.
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Summary
I had PBI stock and sold all for +$20,000 profit in Jan, 2021.
If I sold all the shares one year earlier in 2020, I could have lost -$40,000.
Do not give up too early.
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