How else could I explain my first investment in the stock market on the very day it began its downward spiral in April 2000? It wasn't because of the lack of information available. My daughter had also earned some money. She agreed she would like to invest her dollars, so we decided to find out everything we could about the stock market before jumping into the markets.

We trekked to the library and brought home books on investing. We searched the Internet for strategies. We talked to friends and listened to their advice. One man told us about money he made in the previous year by investing in the technology sector. Our chins hit the floor. We were amazed at the possibilities, and our imaginations ran wild.

We printed out charts and we made notes. CNBC was on the television from early morning until the stock market closed. At that time every day, Cora would insist that enough was enough and it was now time for a few cartoons.

Little did we realize our own life was to become a cartoon, and not a very funny one. Not once did we think to learn about the difference between a bear market and a bull market.

We took our money and invested in two stocks through two different investment companies. I chose Ameritrade, because I wanted to take advantage of daily trading strategies. We put my daughter's money into an account at BUYandHOLD. I wasn't interested in the "buy and hold" strategy. I was about to fritter most of my money away through the "trade and lose" game plan.

During the entire summer of 2000, the stock market kept declining. The problematic presidential election and the Federal tax increases accelerated losses in the fall. In February, my computer screen and I were embraced in a stare-down contest. My daughter's stock was still submitting to the law of gravity. Willpower alone was not going to help that stock price rise. At the moment, I felt patience and acceptance were the only tools available to help me cope with the fainting line on the chart.

I'm not very good friends with patience and acceptance.

My daughter walked by and asked what was wrong. "You look like you just ate a lemon, mom." I certainly felt I had eaten one, along with a chili pepper washed down with hot chocolate.

"Well, Cora, look at your stock." I traced the line down on the chart. "It seems it will be a while before you see any profit. This bear market trend is stretching out longer than I thought it would."

"What's a bear market, mom? Does that mean my cupboard is bare?" Children usually have a clever imagination and a good sense of word play. I thought I'd ask her to tell me the difference between a bear market and a bull market.

"Well, I'm a Taurus, and that's a bull. Bulls are stronger and crazier than bears, so that must mean that a bull market is bigger and better than a bear market." She thought for a moment and added, "But bears are pretty crazy, too. You have to be quiet and patient around bears until they go away."

I thought Cora hit the nail on the head. We looked up "Bear Market" in the online Encyclopedia Brittanica to see if she was correct. It said, "in securities and commodities trading, a declining market...The term bear may derive from the proverb about "selling the bearskin before one has caught the bear" or perhaps from selling when one is "bare" of stock."

Cora was ecstatic about her similar assessment. Then she frowned, "Should we buy more stock now since it's cheap?" Oh dear. With all the information we had waded through last year, I still didn't have a grasp on "dollar cost averaging." I remembered we had stumbled across information on this concept, so we went to articles at BUYandHOLD and the Motley Fool to see if we could understand this investment strategy. I tried to explain dollar cost averaging to Cora as simply as I could...

She remembered I had taken a $500 lump sum to buy her stock. "We could have taken that $500 and bought into your stock once a week, or even once a month, in dollar investments as little as $20," I explained. "That way, as the stock was going down, your investment in the number of shares would have gone up."

I told her how we could have decreased our risk of loss by buying dollar amounts of her stock, rather than buying full shares in a large lump sum investment. "This is a great way to control the amount spent on each purchase of your stock, even when the stock price fluctuates."

It's now March. Cora's stock has stabilized and is still less volatile than most of the other stocks we've watched. We've decided to invest a consistent dollar amount each month into her stock, with an eye on the news and on her chart to assure ourselves we're getting the best bang for our hard-earned bucks. The prospect of building a portfolio with a few dollars each month sure beats the "patience and acceptance" tools I was using earlier.

You might be wondering what happened to my investments. I'm just asking for a little patience and acceptance! I'll let you know soon.

Until then,

Linda Goin