I had my meager stock portfolio parked with Smith Barney (now Morgan Stanley) when I moved to Germany. In the last 15 years, when Texas Instruments crashed from $87 to $20 during the Cheney-Bush crash, I called Morgan Stanley and asked if maybe I shouldn’t use some of my savings and buy another 1000 shares at $20? They said, “no way! You already own some, so you’d be putting too many eggs into one basket!” That $20,000 investment would now be worth $218,000. I didn’t do it although my inner instinct said DO IT! In 1998, i bought 500 shares of Apple at $38. It split a few times and went up, and after a few years, I had 2000 shares that went to $200. Morgan Stanley actually called me in Germany to tell me that Apple was in trouble, and I should bail if it went below $190. My inner instinct again said No! But they were the professionals, so I reluctantly went along. It hit $189, and they sold me out. It went back up—WAY back up, and the $378,000 I got (minus capital gains taxes) would have been worth about $3 million today. Again, minus capital gains taxes, but I think I would be sitting pretty with my net after-tax $2.4 million that I’ll never see because I went with the advice of a seasoned “professional” instead of my own gut instinct. The more a “professional” touts his credentials these days, the less likely I am to believe him.
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