A few days of sunshine and over-ninety-degree weather was just the ticket to back up three months of daily rain. The Smoky Mountains now resemble a tropical rainforest, complete with steaming rivers, snakes, and rumors about alligators. The only things missing are parrots, monkeys, and the bipolar opposition of Tarzan and Jane.

While Cora and I hung out in air-conditioned comfort at my parent's house on our second week of vacation (doing absolutely nothing except watching treetops for the possibility of parrots), my attention was drawn back down to earth as I watched my folk's daily habits. On weekdays, for instance, my father turns the television to the stock market channel and scans through the ticker symbols scrolling along the bottom of the screen. After he checks out his shares and where they stand for the morning, he turns to some golden-oldie half-hour sitcoms and my mother joins him to laugh at corny jokes over breakfast. Later in the day, near the closing bell, my father tunes in again to see how his stocks fared. As he repeated this habit, I realized how my father managed to teach himself the importance of diversity in the stock market.

The lessons began over two decades ago, when my father bought several stocks in various sectors. At that time, my father bought into a particular company that wasn't blue chip or established as a "buy" by analysts. In fact, the analysts probably didn't know the company existed. The business was small, but the fundamentals were strong. Over the past twenty years, the profits my father realized from this equity purchase helped him buy a car outright, enabled him to make periodic house payments, and provided him with hours of thrills and entertainment.

He first discovered this company when he received an invitation to learn more about the service industry through a recruitment seminar. Although he already had a great career at the time as a superintendent for a manufacturing firm, he was curious about how this particular service operated. He wanted to understand how their procedures could help him be more productive at his own job. A few weeks after the seminar, he purchased equity in that company, because he felt they might "go somewhere." The stock was under ten dollars, and he bought one-hundred shares.

Over the years the company was bought by a larger firm, changed names, changed CEOs, went through a scandal or two, expanded into foreign countries, and is now an umbrella for various other firms. The stock is constantly covered by the news, and has graced several magazine covers during both good and bad times. My father watched his investment grow through stock splits and the addition of dividends. When times were good, my father sold shares to purchase an automobile, and the dividends help my folks with additional purchases throughout the year. Sometimes, they even turn the dividends back into the stock to purchase more shares.

This stock is not high-tech (think about it - computers were introduced to homes in 1989, just fourteen years ago), bio-tech (think about the time frame on that one, too), or a seasonal stock that bounces around with inflation, deflation, and the whims of the weather. Even when the company experienced a few rough times, their stock never dropped more than 15 percent. When the market began to slide a few years ago, this stock also dropped; however, the dollar amount wavered and slowly began to climb again, leaving other stocks behind.

Fortunately, my father never doubted his choice. The company's fundamentals never went below my father's standards, and he also knew about the men who started the fledging company. He did his research, thought about it (but not too long), made a decision, and stuck with it. He didn't wait for an analyst to tell him to buy, hold, or sell - when he felt he could benefit from turning a few equities, he sold without consulting anyone or anything beyond his own fact-finding and analytic capabilities. In spite of the 15 per cent drop during hard times, my father refused to listen to his family and held on to the shares. We now know not to bet him on whether this stock will weather any storm, because we lose every time.

The great irony to this story is in the stock my father received from his own company as part of an employee benefit program. While my father stayed with his career, the company he worked for was on a slow decline due to changes in GATT, the development of NAFTA, and other foreign trade programs. As overseas countries produced the same product for international sales, the company my father worked for (and retired from) eventually went bankrupt. Although still in existence, the company is now a mere shadow of its previous international status and power. The stock is worthless, the pension is thin, and the insurance is gone. The only thing that saved my folks from a relatively severe retirement was diversification in their stock market investments.

If I think about the money I wasted within the last twenty years of my life and how much stock that money might have bought, I could drive myself crazy. Although it's hard to look at twenty years down the road, it helps to have Cora around to remind me that this time goes quickly. After recognizing my father's choices, I realize I still have time to make my own moves. After all, he was just four years older than I am now when he first purchased the majority of his portfolio. Now I just need to attend some recruitment seminars, get to know the CEOs, and watch the bottom line on their financials. Or, I could just wait for monkeys and parrots to appear in the great Smokey Mountains. Given those two choices, I'm not sure which one would be the most profitable - but I do know which one makes more sense.

Until Next Week,
Linda Goin