Me, Myself and the Capital Market

A long time ago, a friend of mine told me about this site called www.virtualstockexchange.com where one could start with $500,000 of virtual money and maintain a portfolio of stocks which were matched to real market prices. It was a fantastic place for practice. I learnt to shortsell, buy long, use margins, etc. And I had no awareness before I tried this. But I had my gut and those were the heydays of 2000-2001 when tech was king! I went up to a million dollars in abt 2 weeks (My friend made it to $ 5 mn in abt a month, but he used to live in London then and had greater time to watch and maniupulate the market and well he's smart!). I soon lost interest as trades materialized only in 20 mins and it was in US time. So I had to stay back in office and watch my stocks or wait for slow dialup at home. And besides I had to work. I used to manage a maximum of about 3 or 4 trades a day (abt an hr of trading) and then leave for home. So much for the virtual world. There are some such sites in India too.

I finally entered the real market today and bought 2 shares over which I made a net profit of Rs. 5! Obviously I didn't invest a lot, but it was great to have a positive start. And the excitement of doing something new was good fun.

I am an adrenalin junkie. Need something to keep me excited in life. And the capital markets provide a lot of things including adrenalin by the second. Wish me luck and loads of money :)