July | 2016 | Writes of Passage

Hooked on drugs

by Cathey Weigel

I’ve become a “druggie” in my retirement years. Before you stage an intervention, I’ll explain that my drug addiction is solely based on buying penny stocks of fledgling drug companies. Right now I have five in my bulging portfolio.

One of these little pharma groups is bound to come up with some magic formula soon. With serious investors like me filling their coffers, how can they lose?

Recently my cousin posted on Facebook that she had gone to pick up two prescriptions that were both over $900 each! I feel certain that one of my investments didn’t come up with that money-maker since the best stock I’ve got is now up to a whopping 13 cents a share. I’m a big stockholder with 1,000 shares. And remember, this is only one of the five I’m betting on.

I got involved in these centful investments quite by accident. I was so bored one day that I read way too much Internet garbage, one article of which was about some penny stock that has made millions for its believers who had the brains to get in on the ground floor. There is no ground lower than 2 or 3 cents a share.

Clearly, everything we’ve ever heard about drugs is true. Once you start it is almost impossible to stop.

Just like actually ingesting drugs, once you begin buying penny stocks you become hooked! The first investment was a gateway to more and more until I suddenly found myself with five stocks that I am addicted to watching on the Dow daily.

Ironically, my only prior experience in playing with drugs was when Dennis and I invested about 20 years ago in a start-up company that had to do with pharmaceuticals as well — only this was a cow pregnancy test. Don’t ask. It was touted as one of those rags to riches ground floor opportunities by people we considered smarter than we were. Not even the cows cared to find out if they were pregnant and we kissed $10K goodbye rather quickly.

Rather than souring me on the drug business, the only lesson I learned was not to buy stocks that had a lot of zeros in the price. This is how penny stock investors get hooked.

Although sadly my stocks don’t have trades every day, causing a lot of stagnant prices where I gnaw the inside of my mouth and wonder if my $50 plus or minus investment is going to go the way of cow urine. Then the happy surprise comes when the next day I have gains of some percentage of a cent — yes, they really do list that way — and I’m all smiles again.

I’ve told Dennis that he may have thought he had married a poor school teacher, but at the rate I’m going the day will surely come when I will be able to cash in some of these investments for some money that comes in bills, not coins.