My First Stock Purchase

I made my first stock purchase on Sunday. I bought 500 shares of Meridell Potato Company (symbol: MPC) at 15. It climbed up to 21 briefly on Tuesday, but today it’s back down to 19. All of the stock market strategy sites say I should buy and hold, wait until it climbs into the 60s or 70s before I cash out.

I figured I should diversify, so Tuesday I bought 500 shares of Kau-Kau Farm (KAUF), also at 15. It’s been down and back up to 15. Once again, I’ll use a buy and hold strategy. Hmmm, these are both agricultural commodities, perhaps I should think about diversifying into tech stocks.

How can you get in on this action? Register at neopets.com.

Yes, I’m a big nerd. I started playing at Neopets about 4 years ago. Just a couple weeks ago I finally made my goal of having 5 million neopoints (NP) in the bank (earning 11.5% compounded daily!), so I decided that I’d start investing in the Neopian stock market with my extra dough.

I think Neopets would be a great place to start teaching kids about money. What I’ve mentioned here, basic stock market trading, saving money, and compound interest, are just a few things. There’s also The Money Tree, which you can donate items or NP to, which could turn into a lesson about charitable giving. You can also set up your own store and buy and sell items for profit.

There’s another way to make NP: earning them while playing games. This is my favorite way to make them, mostly because I enjoy the cute little Flash games. A few years ago I was chatting with the college buddy that introduced me to the website about the different ways to get NP, and how I felt like I was in a different social class because I “worked” for my NP by playing games (the proletariat), but there were a lot of very successful players that bought items for cheap and resold them in their shops. I called them the “merchant class”.

Who knew that at the time I was discovering for myself Kiyosaki’s Cashflow Quadrants? In Neopia, I definitely like being an E. I dabbled a little in S. I can’t really think of a way in game to be a B, but I think there are outside networks where this works. And now I’m dabbling in I with my stock purchases.

I guess I’m just a big kid when it comes to my entertainment choices. I’m also just a big kid when it comes to finances. We can still learn at any age, right?