Stupid Netflix.

When I was in 7th grade, in school we learned about the stock market. I don't really know what we learned - I was 13 with a mind built for spelling, so I have no idea what I could have absorbed beyond "buy low, sell high." But as part of the lesson, we had a contest. I think we picked stocks, and the person who had the highest value portfolio at the end of the quarter won a $50 savings bond. Guess who won? That's right - yours truly! The math-challenged student won the stock contest!

Ever since then, I've wanted desperately to play on the stock market. By "play" I honestly mean just to play. I wanted to have a certain amount of money that I could use to buy specific stocks (not indexed funds or any other sort of conglomeration - actual, individual stocks) that I researched and picked based on some sort of logic or system for fun. It would be okay if I lost the money. It would be a hobby or a game or whatever you want to call it. It would be entertainment.

The problem was, I never had enough of loose cash to play like that. I didn't want to get into DRIPs or any of that mess. I just wanted a straight-up e-Trade account where I did my own buys and sells and let the chips fall where they may.

Well, my stock mogul dream finally came true about a month ago. I got a big check for all my unused leave time from my old job, and after investing as much as the law would allow in my Roth IRA account, I decided to use the rest (or at least most of the rest) to open up a TD Ameritrade and get to tradin'!

I researched stocks and subscribed to newsletter from The Motley Fool and picked my stocks. When the account was all set up, I made my first purchases. I bought some Apple, because I knew the iPhone was coming out, and I had high hopes. I LOVE Mac products, and one of the stock gurus I've been learning from says that's one of the methods for picking stocks - investing in things you know and love. At first, that one wasn't doing much. People were trying to hate on the iPhone just before it came out. The stock suffered. But then the iPhone actually hit stores, and it's been all love from there - as of today, my stock is up 13% - woohoo!

One of the other companies I bought was Netflix. I love Netflix. And so do my friends. I know many people who have it and love it, and I read that they had plans to enter the download movie market, so I felt good about the direction they were headed. Motley Fool agreed with me. That's a buy. It went well for quite a while - not huge leaps forward, but in the black. Makin' me a little sumpin' sumpin'. We had one little blip when they lowered the price on one of their plans, but it came back.

Well, those stupid boneheads at Netflix decided to do it again - lower their prices again and on more than one plan! This time they're essentially telegraphing that they're starting to panic - that the competition is getting to them - they're not making it!! Thanks alot, Netflix. That one stock has now taken such a nosedive that it's pulled down my entire portfolio. My entire portfolio is now in the red because of stupid Netflix.

It's not down a lot, and as I said from the start, this is my play money. Nothing bad happens if I lose it. But still - it's so much more fun to make money than it is to lose it. Good thing I still have that savings bond from 7th grade.

*Update - okay, so as the day wears on, my portfolio as a whole has gone back into the black...but I still say "Stupid Netflix!" (I have to admit, I AM having fun with all this! :))