SEPTEMBER 18

Dolla, Ends, Benjamins, Dinero, Moola, Do Ray Me

Why I'm Buying Stock Today
After Wall Street's Not-So-Grand-Re-Opening,
Everything Is On Sale, For a Limited Time Only

by Tony Pierce

Even though my diploma says Literature, I really have a degree in Poetry.

Remember that as I give you this sound financial advice.

Go buy stock.

As much as you can.

Yesterday the markets re-opened after being closed and they tanked. Are you really surprised?

Everyone knows the stock markets are a reflection of the emotions of the investors. Investors are humans. And even though they'll like to have you believe that they aren't driven by whims, they are. How can they help it?

But now is the time to buy stock because everyone has completely lost their minds and who can blame them?

Everyone wanted to know when the markets would hit rock bottom and as Ashley would say, hellllo, open your eyes!

One thing that I have learned from greenthumbs everywhere is that flowers bloom when they think they're about to die.

Look around the streets and you'll see this country showing its colors, and suddenly everyone feels mortal, and targeted... and blossoming.

Tell me people haven't been nicer to each other. And no matter what your town is called, I bet there are flags everywhere - and with it, bright, bold colors..

Flag stick holders that have been empty for years are suddenly hoisting Old Glory and it's because everyone's minds are blown and when people get frightened they unfurl their flags from storage and they pull their money out of the market.

Which is generally a good time to invest, one would think.

Even though we all know that this will not be another Vietnam, people are rightfully anxious about the near future, rightly.

We only sorta know who the enemy is, it's doubtful that even two out of one hundred of us could spell his name correctly, and we're suddenly very curious about the two who can.

Add that with a President who is full of shit, clueless, useless, and seemingly the only American who isn't so angry and emotional and vengeful that he would jump into the next vehicle Wherever to make an unfriendly visit to the dirty little hole that he is cowering inside.

Add the fact that we've heard the word Recession more than we've heard the word Cigar and you shouldn't be surprised to see a depressed nation wading in the aftermath of the dot-com crash. And you should also understand why people aren't so quickly logging into their now-empty E-Trade accounts.

Which makes me ask the question, "so, now how could it get any worse?"

I say it can't. How could it?

As of Monday there had been nearly a week of zero entertainment, no permission to smile, no reason to be joyous. No precident to lean on.

No sports, no good movies, no new tv shows.

Just one bad hypnotic show, going on and on and on.

The tragedy was so dramatic... the camera angles... the viciousness... the utter devastation. After seeing the same story told so many different ways, it was hard to believe that there even is a physical Wall Street anymore, let alone one that I can put my money into.

But that is exactly what I'm going to do.

The only good thing that George W. Bush had ever done for me was write me a check for $300 and he mailed it to me the other day, and I'm going to match his money and invest into a company that I invested in when the markets were doing very well, FTD.com (EFTD).

Our president is promising us a war.

People are going to die and one of them will be the 17th son of 50 and his name is spelled O-s-a-m-a.

Osama's family is very rich, they live in a country of very rich people and when he dies many will buy flowers and I would prefer that they didn't buy them from FTD.com, but they probably will.

When online, most do.

And after I buy my stock, I will buy some flowers for my mom. It's her birthday on Thursday.

And eventually we will overcome this sadness and weirdness and fear, and it wont take 3 hours to get on an airplane. And people will eventually take down their flags from their passenger side windows. And we will go back to taking life for granted, as they should.

And that's when I will sell.

Today is the day to buy.

Tony Pierce once bought 100 shares of eToys at 7 1/4