Getting on with life

In my final semester of engineering, the last exam I wrote was for a course called 'Security Analysis and Portfolio Management'. The last words I wrote in that exam were 'portfolio management'. I remember these words very specifically because at that point, these seemed the last words I would ever write in an exam. Quite a sentimental fool I was. Plan A in life was to end education with that exam and get on with everything else.

The name of the course 'Security Analysis and Portfolio Management' has some funny memories associated with it. Back in semester 5, when I chose Financial Management as my minor I was told that the last course would be 'Security Analysis and Portfolio Management'. I was and still am someone with a average intellect. I wondered what security had to do with finance. I told myself "maybe they will teach us how to guard an office and how to analyze office security". Of course, portfolio management I could never figure out what.

Slowly the realization dawned on me that security is a very different thing in finance and it has nothing to do with uniformed guards roaming around with batons and whistles.

I caught the share market bug briefly at that time. I read the papers, watched a few stocks move. I even had a scrapbook with newspaper clippings and stock graphs. Again, Plan A was to start work, get a demat account, invest and grow rich.

When money came in in the form of salary, the testosterone was in short supply. One needed a certain amount of guts and a feeling of being dispassionate about money to invest. Suddenly the share market seemed like a well organized, legally viable means to bet (I still think it is a legalized form of betting, but as of now I am running along Plan D or Plan E for life) To cut the explanation short, I never invested.

After all these years, I finally got myself a trading account and a reasonable amount of money to 'play with'. There have been a lot of changes since 'Security Analysis and Portfolio Management' in my understanding of Finance and the markets. I traded today and it felt good.