Fairport Women

Rebuilding Home: Everyone Has a Zytrex* Experience

By Deborah Feldman

I find that the majority of people I meet are really wonderful, kind, caring individuals. This has been true throughout most of my life. After my husband passed away, I was the recipient of a lot of well-intentioned advice, and I incorporated most of it into my daily life. Thankfully, the majority of the advice that I received was well thought out and appropriate for my circumstances. 

When one loses a spouse, they lose so much more than a life partner. They also lose confidence about making decisions, what the future looks like, how to live life as a single person – it is incredibly depressing and scary. Sometimes the inability to decide is not necessarily bad. There are some decisions that can wait and as anyone who knows me can attest, I am a big proponent of not making a decision unless I understand all aspects of the issue. I wasn’t born with this credo, however. 

I still remember the day that a well-intended relative suggested that since I hadn’t had a lot of investment experience, I should dip my toe into the world of securities. And he even had a stock in mind – he told me I would be able to double my money in a short amount of time, and that many of our friends were already investors. So, I put my order in for 500 shares of Zytrex. It was trading at $7/share, and I was excited about my $3,500 investment (that I didn’t know a thing about…)! I couldn’t wait to double my money! You can probably guess how this turned out…if memory serves me right, the price point I bought in at was the about the highest price the stock would ever achieve. I watched my investment decline quickly and I eventually sold it for $1.50/share. While this was not a very pleasant experience, it provided me with two (thankfully) cheap life lessons:

1. Don’t throw your money at anything you haven’t thoroughly investigated and understand. 
2. Don’t double down (or as one of my clients always says: “don’t put perfume on a pig”).  If the investment looked good at $7/share and it continues to decline thereafter, it most likely won’t look any better at $1.50/share. So, resist buying more shares at a cheaper price. 

Over the years I have listened to many people relay similar stories and express how they regret having made poor financial decisions that have cost them so much money. They are usually somewhat embarrassed and feel bad about being “so stupid.” Whenever I hear someone expressing such emotional pain I’m always reminded about what I call my “Zytrex Experience” and I will share it with them. I know I am in good company when I tell this story because there are very few people (yes, even Warren Buffett!) who never experience financial loss in their lives.

For more insight from Deb, you can read the previous issue of Rebuilding Home here, or stay up-to-date on new issues by following Deborah Feldman’s blog on LinkedIn.

*This story takes place in the early 80s, and Zytrex is no longer a publicly traded security.