S1 Ep1 Getting Our Stock In Order

Welcome to our premiere episode, in which four friends:  A. Say hello!  B. Fess up to ignorance... and wisdom! C. Talk about one of the most taboo subjects among friends... money! & D. Establish a few challenges for the weeks to come. 

Transcript

Women Take Stock. Season 1. Episode 1. 

Getting Our Stock In Order

Dana:     

I remember seeing a sign years ago outside of a coffee shop. And it said, if you don't like your story, change that shit. And I sat back and I was like, hmm, what don't I like about my story? My immediate thought? Financial insecurity and feeling, not empowered.

That's the story I didn't like. And that's the story I wanted to change. 

TULA: Welcome to women taking  stock.

JEN: Will you kick us in with some of the teaser music? 

TULA:  Sure.

JEN:   That's totally the wrong theme. You need something a little 

DANA: more like

(music)

JEN: Okay everybody. Welcome to our show. women, take stock, W T S. 

We're four friends, all at different stages in our financial and personal lives, looking to pull back the curtain on the seemingly mysterious, often testosterone driven world of stock investing.

TULA: And if four women without business degrees can out the market as a side hustle. Well, so can you. 

JJ: So join us as we learn basics, buy,  sell, scratch our heads, hold our breath, exhale, commiserate, and celebrate. Hopefully more of the latter. 

DANA: Maybe we can even make a little or a lot of money doing it. And if money is power, we'd definitely want some of that too.

JEN:  So simply put, we're gonna try to figure this out and. I don't know, maybe we'll be able to buy a  nice lunch someday.  

Okay, so now there's a little jingle jingle, jingle, whatever.

TULA:  The WTS podcast and related products are created for general information purposes. Only visitors should not act upon this content without first seeking appropriate advice from a financial planner, a tax attorney, or some other relevant professional. Any advice that might resemble a real tip is purely coincidental.

JEN: So now we're going to get real and talk about what we're actually doing here and why anybody would even want to listen.  But the short of it is that we're four friends who have different amounts of financial stress in our life, and we're trying to figure out how to get some control over it. And, this all started back this summer, right during COVID. Well we're still in the middle of COVID. And I, Jen was talking to Tula and Tula was telling me a little bit about her friend, Dana, and how Dana in one day made some money on some stock.

And it wasn't even so much that she made all this money in one day, it was more like, how did she even know how to do that? It's such a mystery to me, how the stock market works. I still to this day do not know what they mean when they say the Dow Jones industrial average or NASDAQ. I mean, I vaguely know, but I don't really know.

And, you know, money is just this kind of thing we all want, but don't understand. And so I was really impressed that this really good friend of a really good friend of mine who has no background in finance to speak of was able to get a handle on it and do something on her own, not, not paying some middleman some fee or commission. And I say, man, cause they're all men, most of the time, not all, but many are men. And that this woman was able to empower herself in this way. So, Tula, you got really excited when I started getting excited and 

TULA:  Yeah, I think it was a day when we were both kind of feeling down and it gave us both this boost of like, ooh, something positive can happen during the pandemic.

And you can actually take control of your financial life in a way that can. change things up a little bit.  

I have some minimal, retirement investments, but I'm in, you know, financial confession time, I'm in credit card debt and not just a little, but a lot. 

And so that was making me feel like, why can't even begin to figure out the stock market and invest until I get out of credit card debt, but then what does that mean? That means that I have to wait yet another couple of years to get involved in something that could actually help me get out of credit card debt. Right. If I, if I learned the basics and I, I can make a little money. And that's frankly, I represent, almost half of Americans, half of Americans have credit card debt. 

And does that mean

JEN: I thought you meant because you're a woman. 

TULA: What?

JEN: I thought you meant because you're a woman. 

(laughter)

TULA: I represent half of Americans, half of Americans, but, you know, does that mean that I should be excluded from participating in a financial tool that 50% of Americans use?

No. So I also consider myself a feminist. And so I'm like, you know what, there's also a gender gap. Like, you know, more men than women own stock. And I'm like, that's not fair. I'm going to help correct that. So basically, yes, I'm ready to be Dana 

A year from now. I want to be able to call up one of you and say, I just made some money on this stock that I researched and sold.

And here I am living in, in town boxes. I'm single. So I used to live in New York. I'm here in Austin to kind of help my financial life get back on track. So this is a part of that.

JEN: Right. And so before we go to our like inspiration guru, I'm putting a lot of pressure on Dana here, I'm going to go to Jen because, before we even got to Dana and said, “Hey, join this little thing,” we went to Jen because you and I know, well, I know you and Jen, I don't know Dana well, but I'm getting to know her better. So, Jen is in London and has like. 

JJ: It’s JJ. 

JEN: Oh gosh. It's so confusing. And let me just explain to her audience that there are two Jens, right? Obviously, and to clarify that, I'm going to go as Jen and JJ in London is going to go as JJ. I'm not entirely sure why we landed on that, but that's what it is. And J-- JJ, Oh, this is going to be hard. You have a little bit more experience than Tula and I do, but not as much as Dana. So I wonder if you could kick in about like, why this was interesting to you and you know, what you want to learn from it, where you're at with all this?

JJ: Yes. Well, I'm a native, native born Texan lived in London going on 17 years now. For me, I think one of the things that really excited me about this project and the four of us, similar in some ways, very different in others, is that it's about thinking about our finances, and as Tula said, taking control of them, but not in that typical way that they tell women to take control of their finances by investing in mutual funds and, you know, getting a really tight budget, you know, no longer buying Starbucks coffees and managing the grocery bill that it's something that's much more. It's exciting. It can yield better returns. I mean, now you can't get anything from a savings account. I had a bit of money. I started looking at what I could put that into and almost everything I could put, I could put money into. You know, certain financial instruments and at the end of two years, make something like $12. Right. 

JEN: And then you could buy yourself a frappuccino.

JJ: Exactly. Unless I'm cutting back on that because I'm balancing my budget. So I think that's really exciting. I do think there's, there's such a bias in women feeling like they can get into the stock market and take control. I used to work at a financial news website as an editor, and I'm really interested also in these stories, that for me is what's what the hook is. I'm learning about the numbers and how to look at a company and analyze all the numbers that it provides. But also I think the stories are what really hooked me in.

And so, I'm looking forward to that. My situation is a bit different. I used to be on quite stable financial ground, I got a divorce. There was some other, related financial upheaval that basically has taken me from being in a pretty stable position where I could. Predict my finances over the next 10, 15 years to not being able to do that.

And that's pretty stressful. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there, especially with COVID, dealing with that of having to regroup and think about their finances in a fresh way. And, anyone, especially women going through a divorce, financial inequality is built into divorce. Women income goes down.

Usually when they divorce. So yeah, so I'm looking to hopefully make it go the other way. 

JEN: And I have to say that that's a perfect segue to Dana because when you talk about looking at finance in a fresh way, well, I can't think of a fresher way then our friend Dane over here. So Dana, I just love to get a little background about who you are and how you got started in this, that you've now become our light and our guide.

DANA: Thank you. 

DANA: I have no financial background. Yeah. I'm more of  a people person, although very much introvert, and, and an artist at heart. I think anything financial always completely turned me off and I had just eschewed any conversation about that. I pretty much ignored investing and any financial advice anyone would give me. I immediately moved to Manhattan after college and pretty much started going into debt and really getting accustomed to the idea and this like weird comfort zone of living  hand to mouth and month to month.

And, whenever I had any savings, I would spend it. I did not ever think  five years out. I was always thinking a month in advance. I would have friends as I got older, who were like, let's go to the Hamptons this summer and let's rent a house and I'd be like, It's September. Well, how are you thinking about June now?

You don't know what is going to happen. So that mindset has dominated my life. So way fast forward to recently, my hook is money because  money actually does buy happiness to a certain extent.

And I know people that's not very popular thing to say, but you know what, when you can pay it bills and you're not freaking out and looking at your bank account and doing things like I did like spreadsheets, you know, day after day, year after year, trying to figure out can I actually move next [00:10:00] month when my,  lease is up or having to shift money around or take advantage of balance transfers to really just live a normal life. That's extremely uncomfortable. So I think I have firsthand knowledge that money does buy happiness in terms of the ability to survive and just be comfortable, and I think as a single woman, who's never been married. I have a child on my own, who I now share custody of with his dad. And I am female. So a lot of  things make me slightly less empowered than maybe a man in my position.

And I was just really tired of being in that bottom wrong.  

I remember seeing a sign years ago at a Coffee shop. It said, if you don't like your story, change that shit. And I, I really sat back and thought about that and was like, wait if I don't like my story, what don't I like about my story?

And, you know, I live in New York and I, you know, have my artsy background. I have cool friends that speak all these different languages and I scraped money together, And all of the things I just described, the financial insecurity and feeling not empowered at all is the story that I didn't like.

So, you know, coming up to this. You're a guest coinciding with turning 50 right before COVID I decided, all right, I'm just going to do this. I'm going to just pop a hundred dollars into Robinhood and see where I can go. 

JEN: What is Robinhood for those of us… 

DANA: Robinhood is an investing platform, an online investing platform, similar to Etrade, and it does what, you know, 10 years, 20 years ago, brokers used to do. It allows for really anyone to invest if they have the money to open an account for a hundred dollars. 

JEN: Right. And I might say we are going to get into this too, the different options. There are for people who are just getting started about how to get started.

But I just wanted to give that a little bit of context. So yeah. So take it from there, I didn't realize it was before COVID.

DANA:  Yeah, well, yeah, a few months before COVID, my mother passed away in January of this year, and I think some of that connecting more deeply with my dad and my brother, I think gave me some impetus turning 50, like I said too, just reconfigure what my story is, and yeah, I can change that shit. I do have control of that and the whole idea that knowledge is power. I've always been really big into research. My current work is based in research and supporting high net worth families. I'm the queen of information organization and research and spreadsheets, and I thought. You know, why not put all these things together? Like I can just teach myself how to do this like all these finance people that I see on TV, or even  the high net worth families that I worked for, these people really just got to where they are because they took hold and they did research and they went to school or they, you know, hung out with the right people or got a job in the right place. , and I just decided, I can do the research piece. So yeah,  a hundred dollars in Robin hood gave me the impetus to start researching and just kind of. Get my, you know what together? 

JEN: Well, you know, it's funny. We were just saying that I was like, maybe like as our subtitle instead of, you know, women take stock, it should just be like, change that shit. C-T-S.

(laughter)

JEN: I didn't really give much a bio background, but I am married with two kids and live in Washington DC and I'm not worried about losing my house or whatever, but my own personal cash flow situation has really taken a hit with COVID.

I'm an independent writer and filmmaker, and pretty much all of my work has dried up. And that feeling of not having any money coming in is. Crushing. I mean, even though I fully recognize the privilege that I'm not going to lose my house or anything, I'm very lucky that my husband is right now, at least employed and has benefits, but it doesn't feel good. And the idea of being able to change that shit and not be dependent also on his job. I mean, I was not brought up to be dependent on a man's income to make my life. Okay. I need to know that I can do it by itself. And if right now there's not much going on right now in documentary filmmaking for sure. And writing novels is definitely not a get rich quick scheme. I needed, I needed another plan, so that's where I'm at with this. I think the big question is  how do we get going? But that is the question, right?

And so you figured it out, Dana, you figured out for yourself how to get going. Maybe because of your experience with your clients and you had a little bit more of a comfort level of just jumping in signing up for that Robinhood account

DANA: Yeah, kind of like swimming in that arena,  I'm not one of those sharks, but being exposed to high net worth families. I did grow up in Westchester County. Again, exposed to high net worth, lots of money and the money can buy security, at least something else I want to throw in. And we can talk about it more another time, but the idea of multiple sources of income.

Investing being one source of income, you know, and I think I got into this, not thinking like, oh my God, I'm going to solve all my financial problems by investing in Robinhood and, you know, making a million dollars and options. It was more like, you know, if I can just find another way to generate income, this could be one of those additional ways. 

JEN: Absolutely clear. I don't think any of us harbor any illusions that the stock market isn't that different from gambling.

DANA: Absolutely. 

JEN:  So I think we're all trying to be really smart about this. How do we move forward without losing our shirts without being really irresponsible?

DANA: Yeah. And I think, for example, the gambling analogy, you would never walk into a casino not knowing what games they play there, how these games are played, the general rules, you know, how you manage going from table to table. Like, yes, maybe there's a certain crapshoot involved in gambling, you know the roll of the dice and all that stuff.

But there are some parameters that you can educate yourself about and follow to win. 

JEN: Okay, let's get started. 

So Jen JJ, I'm sorry, JJ. You, you had some information for me earlier, before we started recording. 

JJ: Yes. I just bought my first stock that's come out of this group in our discussions. 

JEN: So what happened? Tell us. 

JJ: Okay, well, so I guess it's not soup to nuts because I haven't sold it whether it's a gain or loss but I've been inspired by some of the conversations here and I've been doing some research over several weeks. And I kept not being able to pull the trigger and I think that goes back to that sense of, Oh, I don't know enough, what if it's a mistake? And I think that psychological component is really important to understand and that I did have to feel like, okay, I'm going to make this small investment.

I bought a single share that costs me $131, 

DANA: But that's right. That's manageable. The key is to like taking your first step. And I think this is what I did as well back in February. I thought, okay, how much am I willing to lose? Like what can I put in this investment in this moment? That I am comfortable if it just totally disappears, I'm not gonna owe anymore, but, you know, and it was, for me, it was a hundred dollars at the time.

And so, JJ, it sounds like for you $131 was totally manageable. And if it disappears, you're comfortable with that. 

JJ: Yes. And also, I think for me too, this sense of, you know, in future episodes we're going to talk about analysts and their recommendations and experts and whatnot, but it was very interesting to take all the information that's out there, but then also do my own analysis.

TULA: Wait, wait, wait. Before you say that I'd be taking it back a couple steps before you reveal how you did your research, like what were your research steps? Because I am about to embark on the journey you just did. And I want to know kind of like, did you just Google stock experts? How did you do it?

JJ: No, what I did was, well, I know from when I worked at this financial news website, certain places I've heard of and you know, morning star, Dowel Jones and the Wall Street Journal. I'm trying to think what else, you know, I looked at CNN, I looked at MarketWatch, I looked at Yahoo. I looked at loads and loads of different websites and read everything.

TULA:  And it was like a certain sector that you were looking at, or? 

JJ: Yeah, what I did was I knew there were a couple of different sectors I'm interested in one is marijuana, another is gaming. I'm not a gamer myself, but I think being a parent you see more and more how gaming is just kind of baked into kids' lives.

It's becoming more acceptable for 20 somethings, 30 somethings, you know, these days, especially during COVID, the live streaming that you do with gaming, the more that games act like social media networks. 

JEN: So what did you do? Can she reveal it now? Tula? Is that okay? 

TULA: Yeah, now I'm ready, but thank you for that, because that gives me a sense of like, actually I should look into my own life and think about what I think it's changing. 

JJ: Yeah. And so basically I went and I looked at the big stock folks in that area. Take Two. Activision Blizzard. These are actually company names. There's a Chinese entertainment giant called Tencent that owns loads of stuff, including Fortnite and that kind of thing.

DANA: I have a pre teenage son and JJ, we haven't discussed this I don't believe in the past, but you're thinking is totally parallel to my experience early on. When I started looking around and thinking like, what is going on and in my life that is applicable to stocks, like what an investing and exactly that, you know, I've got my kid online.

Doing everything you're mentioning that potentially your daughter might be doing and thinking like, yeah, this is something to invest in. And this is something to take a look at. And even, even talking to my 12 year old, asking him who owns Fortnight? You know, who owns that game that you're on every single day? 

JEN: So, you know what’s going to happen here? It's like the big takeaway after we do our whole research into who has the best tips and the best accuracy, we're going to find out it's 12 year-old boys. 

DANA: Yeah. Yeah. 

JEN: Well, They know where the future is. Yeah. Yeah. 

JJ: Yeah. So anyway, I looked at those companies and it was interesting too, because, for example, Take Two is considered, almost overvalued.

Everybody expects it to make more and more money, but to get in now, does it make sense? It was interesting because reading what analysts say, and then I went back and looked at the stock, looked at things like earnings per share, projections on, you know, what was going to be coming down the pike and also looking at things that had happened.

So, in 2018, 2019, this stock did not do very well. They had a big problem where they under delivered for Christmas for 2018 and it badly affected their stock. But since then, They rejigged and came out with more things and are moving in a new direction. So yes, the one I bought was electronic arts, EA ,y'all probably know their little logo.

They do FIFA. They do Madden. And then they also have a big catalog of, Star Wars games are very popular. So, yeah, I brought one share and the thing is I did start to do enough research that suddenly I made my decision and I did some more. And then it's like, Oh, now I'm only starting to doubt.

And that was a moment where I thought for me personally, that I needed to either decide that it was a yes or I needed to move on. 

JEN: You know, it's funny, even though it's not a huge amount of money. So I did a similar thing right. Where I was like, what in my life feels like something that could become bigger, I guess, like, what's been useful to [00:22:00] me during COVID? CBD oil has really helped me. And so I started looking at some CBD adjacent stock, and it's funny though, because I've been watching it. This is a few weeks now, and it's not a lot of money that I've put in, but I was, I watched every day, I noticed that I doubt myself constantly, like was that the right stock. It's freaking me out, watching it go up and down and, there's a lot of, insecurity around that 

DANA: It's really important to pay attention to. And that could be a whole conversation we have on that separately too. Right. 

JEN: Right. I want to understand how to understand that,

if that makes any sense, like I want to understand, and I guess this is the magic key if you know when to buy and sell, but also. what does it mean if a stock dips this much or that much? And it's funny because the whole concept of stock is really, you know, at its purist, you're investing in a company and you want to believe in that company, but then there's this whole other thing that happens where the psychology of the entire stock market comes into play and it's very, it's hard.

It's nerve wracking. It's not my comfort zone at all. And I want to figure out how to get more comfortable with that. 

DANA: This is not for faint-hearted, it's not for a reactionary personality. Like there's this, this conversation about paper hands and you paper hands, meaning like you sell, you react very quickly to your stocks going up or down and you sell when they go down and you end up losing money because you didn't sit and hold and you see all these guys on wall street years ago, this, you know, they're screaming and yelling and they're, you know, whatever the floor is that crazy mentality. I'm the, you know, the Wolf of wall street. But I think a lot of investing involves, being calm and taking charge of your emotions and not being reactive.

JEN: Tell me if I may have misread this, but I swear to God, I saw somewhere that investment groups that are run by women tend to perform better. 

TULA: They do that. That's that's yeah. 

JEN: (overtalk) Maybe there is like, I don't want to like,totally simplify this, but I want to believe that maybe there is something about our intuition, our ability to kind of see the world in more nuanced shades 

DANA: and creating a support network where we can bounce ideas off of each other and support each other. And like, no, it's okay. You don't have to sell that because it went down to $20 today. Right? Maybe men on the other hand would have much more hyperbolic and reactionary responses. 

TULA: So you guys are inspiring me.  So for our next show? I will purchase a stock that I have researched so that I can take that first step that you guys have already taken.

JEN:  Yeah, well, so Tula I think that's awesome. And so you're saying you're going to research things and I'm just curious if I don't offhand, but Dana, maybe you do, or Jen, maybe you do or JJ. It's funny that I'm the other gen and yet I can't call you JJ. I don't, I don't get it, but where should Tula  is start, you know?

DANA: But Tula, do you want, you know, do you want guidance? Do you want to, you know, work together or do you want to just do it on your own? , 

TULA: I mean, I guess because you know, the whole point of this is for, you know, everybody to be able to do it on their own with some help, right? Like where are your friends to all you listeners out there we're holding your hand?

Maybe you guys can give me a few pointers and then I can take it from there? So I didn't really get into my bio too much, but I don't have kids. I'm a writer. , and I don't know if that plays into what stocks I should be like...how...

JEN: I do think there's something to be said though about investing in things that are interesting to you, because then you're going to be more likely to read about them. It's about the story. So we are all professional storytellers too. Right? So I, for me, anyway, think that for me to invest in something that I have absolutely no interest in doesn't really make sense because I just won't spend time learning about it.

Whereas if you want to talk to me about, psychopharmaceuticals that are being developed out of magic mushrooms will then you've, you've picked my interest and I'm going to read up about that. 

DANA: I liked the idea of all of us taking this path to investing in something that we, I believe in.  Jen and JJ, you both, bought the stocks you did based on your life experience and what drives you and what you can identify with and Tula  or maybe you should apply that to your life. 

TULA: As you guys are talking I’m thinkingI love streaming television, 

(laughter)

British murder mysteries. I love true crime podcasts. As Dana knows. I'm, we're, we're kind of obsessed with… it it involves murder, missing people, or serial killers I'm in.

JEN:  So you're going to, you're going to invest in weapons industries?

(overtalk) 

DANA: I think that this is like, you're on, you're definitely on the right path. 

JJ:  Yeah. In fact, I was just looking over the weekend, looking at both Netflix and Disney. Because while Disney of course has all these theme parks, those are an issue now because people aren't going to theme parks, but long, longer term that will bounce back.

But with the launch of Disney plus it's been so wildly successful that, you've got some folks saying now Disney has gone from a hold to a buy because. They're totally retooling and they've been planning for this for years. And it just so happened to correspond with what's going on.

DANA: Why would they not want to do that when Netflix has gone up and in a, since March, Netflix has gone from $300 to $530 a share.

JEN: When you're looking into this, I'd be really curious to know, because when I see these things, when I see it, like, what's the point of buying Netflix at this point? It's so expensive. Like you want to be the person who bought Apple and, you know, 1990. if that was available back then.

DANA: You want to be the person that buys Disney, because it's, it's tanking right now because people are freaking out about the streaming. So it's basically anything that's tanking. That's a pretty decent company on sale, as far as some like market people are concerned. So, you know, yes, the stock is down, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't buy it. Actually. It means maybe you want to consider buying it because if it's something like Disney. 

TULA: So what I'm going to do is based on some of your questions and thoughts,  I'm going to research the streaming industry and maybe I'll decide not to purchase for whatever reason and I'll go in a different direction, but that will be what I focus on this week. 

JEN: Okay. So now we need some suspense music. 

(music)

JJ: So one thing I was going to say in terms of advice, keying off what Dana just said, you're mentioning Disney is on sale, but that's why even just reading around a company, reading general kind of financial news, finding out, what's happening with the CEO or what's happening with their overall business, and you read backwards for a year or two, and so much of this stuff it's free. I mean, the learning is free. You can read around a lot of industries and a lot of accompanies without needing to buy bespoke financial information. And that's something anyone can do and in a week, you'll be like, Oh my gosh, you'll be coming back here telling us, well, I've been looking at streaming services.

And let me tell you ladies, and that's the exciting bit. You will be more knowledgeable. 

TULA: I love that and I love what you just said about it being free. It's so empowering. 

JEN: Yeah, which is so funny too, because there's so much there. That's like, If you spend a hundred dollars a year on this, we're going to get you all this information. You'll be rich. And it's very tempting to be like, Oh, it's just, you know, $2 a month. And I'll, but, but there is so much out there. So this is actually a great jumping off point to talk about what we want to talk about next, which is what's an expert, right?

DANA: Yeah, that's a great question because everyone says they're experts out there and it's like, really, if you're such an expert, why are you actually making this newsletter that you sell every week for, you know, $10 a pop, instead of investing my money, can, you know, $5 million a day, you're that great?

Why are you...And there's a lot..there are a lot of entities, a lot of folks out there that, you know, hold themselves up as being the experts. And it's like, who, what is an expert, who is an expert? 

JEN: What is the, what is the actual success rate of some of these players that purport to be experts? Are they really all that? And if they are all that, then let's go there. But I need to know actually, no, that right. I don't want to just know, to know.

JJ: We need to know. 

JEN: Okay, so where are we going guys?

TULA: So I, I know what I'm doing this week. What do you, what do each of you plan on? How are you going to further your knowledge base or your make more money cases? Like what's, what's next for each of you? 

JEN: I'm struggling with, it's funny because you know, again, like, you know, putting in little bits and basically this, the couple of stocks that I bought, one is, again, CBD, adjacent. It's about a distribution model of marijuana products and it's a Canadian company. I can't remember off hand what it's called and another one, I'm interested in renewable energy sources and this was like..., I don't even remember what they did. It was something I can't even...but it was all, it was just one of these things that I found, and it was some renewable energy thing and it was a buy and I was like, okay, I'll do that.

So I think for me, I just kind of, I want to look a little bit deeper in those two arenas. So, you know, give me some reveal music here. 

TULA: (music)

JEN: The good news is that, I guess it's been a month that I've been investing through Robinhood, and what's cool about Robin hood is that they have these wonderful graphics that you can check like one day, one week, whatever.

And so when I was looking day to day this week, I was losing all this money. I was losing, you know, dollars... and I was kind of feeling really bad about it, but I just clicked on the one month and I'm actually still up a tiny bit from where I was when I started. So that's nice to know. At one point, just to give you some perspective, I think I've put a total of $200 in over the last few weeks. And at one point that $200 was worth at the highest, it looks like $241. And I thought I was like all that, but now it's worth $213. So, you know, it's kind of fun to watch and ADA, and it's funny, cause for me that actually like we're getting into money, that's starting to feel like real money, right?

It's not, it's not just a dinner out. It's, it's a couple of dinners out. It's, it's a part of a utility bill. So I think I just want to spend a little time actually understanding the couple of stocks that I bought already. Like what did I do? 

DANA: Right. 

TULA: So, right. So you're going to kind of figure out what your next step is, but you're not in any rush to do anything. 

JEN: Right. and if II have a challenge for myself that every week I want to put in a little bit like maybe $25, nothing, again, nothing that I couldn't bear to lose. Right? So am I going to put it into one of the stocks I've already bought? Or am I going to try to find something else? And I'll let you know how that goes. 

DANA: Okay, 

JEN: cool. 

DANA: Alright. 

And JJ, what are you going to do? 

JJ: Well, I'm going to continue looking into a couple of different sectors. And what I'm trying to do now is catch up on just general reading in terms of, , stock market investing theory and getting a feel for things like price to earnings ratios, and then all these things, which are terms that I know, and I can look up every single time.

I typically do some analysis, but I would like to get those, I almost need to go through andcram, like for a test. So I start to know those terms just by heart, I think that will really help me kind of understanding companies and understanding the market. 

TULA: Is that so that when you are reading the news about it, and they give you that language, you know immediately what that means? So you're not lost in the terminology. 

JJ: Yeah. I'm not going over to Wikipedia too, you know, or typing in a search, like what does blah, blah, blah mean? 

JEN: Which is great. Cause I think like, I think, like we said next week and we're going to kick into this, for next week, we're going to really talk about what makes an expert. But at some point we're going to hyper focus on what is all of this terminal? What does it all mean? What it is? Yeah. Cause I think you can't really go forward if you don't know the language. Yes. Yeah. 

DANA: So, yeah, I'm just going to throw in my next steps. I think I'm a little more advanced in my investing. I have a pretty solid portfolio with 34% return as of today. 

JEN: Oh my God. Over how much time? 

DANA: Since February. 

JJ: Oh my God.

(overtalk) 

JJ: I said, do you invest other people's money as well? 

JEN: We're going to spend a year doing this. And at the end of it, the three of us are all just going to give our money to Dana. 

DANA: And then, you know, we can look into the whole idea of pyramid schemes and how they fail and Bernie off, because that's basically what he did. He convinced, you know, his friends and friends of friends to invest money with him. And then he

(overtalk)

DANA: But we're not going to do that. But, something I'd like to research is investing in options and doing options trading. So my next step is to, 

JEN: Okay. Can I just interrupt and say you may have, well, just spoken like some Klingon language. Cause I have no idea what that means. 

DANA:  Mandarin.

(overtalk)

DANA: Yeah, well, that’s something that we can talk about. I just want to make some more money, so that's kind of where I'm going with this, cause I haven't ventured into anything other than just the regular... the day trading and the short term trading. So options is next. 

TULA: I love that we are all at different phases and it's exciting. Cause I get to follow you out, but maybe one day  I'll be ahead of you. We'll see. 

JJ: Get a little competitive. 

JEN: How about maybe one day, we'll all be on par with Dana. 

JJ: Yeah. 

JEN: So I think the other thing too, that we need to tell her audience is that we are setting up a website and we're going to have an email address.

And so we want people to send us their questions and concerns or topics and stuff that they'd like to share or talk about. Hopefully at some point we'll start having guests. But really what we want to come out of this is to really empower other women like us to take control of our financial lives and not to be so scared of it.

DANA: If we can do it… 

(overtalk)

DANA: So cliche, but it's so true. If four regular women are as amazing as they are, but if they're just regular women, then if we can do it, anyone else can do it. So yeah, 

JEN: Amen sister.

TULA: And now, the outro.

(music) 

DANA: If you'd like to learn more about us and what we do and who we are, or just get in touch with us, you can go to womentakestock.com or you can check us out on our Instagram feed women take stock, or you can get in touch with us on Twitter at @WomenTake Stock. Yay. See you all next week. We need it. 

JEN: We need a groovy, tagline.Oh, wait, isn't it change that shit?

DANA: Change that shit. I'd be like, change that shit. 

JEN: Okay. Bye.