In March 2021, I was nearing the completion of my Master of Arts in Teaching. I
was halfway through my student teaching experience, on a leave of absence from
work, and not contributing any money to my household. I was also about to
discover that my fiancée was pregnant. To say it was a fraught time is an
understatement, and on top of all of that, I made a decision to throw myself
headfirst into the stock market, a topic about which I was woefully
under-informed.
It started, I imagine, like a lot of these things start, with a
stock tip from a friend. A few weeks prior, GameStop, a brick and mortar video
game retailer, had seen its stock price skyrocket, and AMC, the largest chain of
movie theaters in the world, was going to do the same, he said. I didn’t have a
lot of money, but I believed in his pitch enough to throw a thousand dollars at
it. Maybe I could double it and make enough to take my fiancée on a decent
vacation, I thought. As the ticker started to rise, so did my excitement. By the
start of June 2021, I was in for nearly $7,000 with an average cost of $11 per
share. I still had faith in the play.
On June 2nd, the price reached a peak of $72.62. My roughly $7,000 investment
was would have earned me over $37,000 (before Uncle Sam could have his say in
the matter). I say “would have” because I never sold. I graduated with my
Master’s degree and held. The pandemic continued to rage and I held. My son was
born, and while I held him for the first time I continued to hold my shares.
Today, just over a year from that date, I still have not sold a single one. My
investment was, as recently as May, actually losing about $800. Today it has
earned roughly $900. I still have no solid plan as to when I am going to sell. I
don’t look at it as “losing” what amounted to a year’s salary. I look at it as
holding out for justice to prevail and fraud to be punished. My journey in the
stock market began with AMC, but that was only an introduction. I had a lot to
learn about how the market works, how the market is supposed to work, and how to
earn money within the confines of an obviously broken and largely fraudulent
system.
I tell you this story so that you understand the mentality required to
trade effectively. It was not won easily, I promise. Plenty of days I wanted to
pack it in and give up; just take whatever I had left and walk away. Removing
emotion from trading is absolutely crucial, but how is one to do that with
thousands upon thousands of real dollars at stake? That’s what we are here to
discuss.
Mark Feeney, Pulitzer Prize winning author of "Nixon at the Movies," visited the University of Maine on Thursday. "Nixon at the Movies" cleverly compares the relationship between Nixon and Hollywood. It analyzes Nixon's love for film and how it inspired him to make certain decisions. The Mobile Maine News crew decided to ask audience members, "Who do you think has best portrayed Nixon on the big screen?". The options: Philip Baker Hall in "Secret Honor," Anthony Hopkins in "Nixon," Dan Hedaya in "Dick," Frank Langella in "Frost/Nixon," or Robert Wisden in "Watchmen."
It's hard to tell where journalism is going. Is the internet going to be the savior of newspapers, or are bloggers going to rule the day? Where do the changes leave journalism students as they try to crack into the shrinking job market? Journalists in the Bangor area weigh in on these issues and try to figure out what the media is headed for.
On a campus with thousands of students trying to make their mark before their academic career is over, it's hard to stand out.
In a country where millions of people hardly try at all to maintain a sustainable society, it may be difficult to change their minds.
Mike Maberry is is trying to do both.
As the coordinator of the Green Campus Initiative at the University of Maine, Maberry is primarily responsible for overseeing all of the organization's employees in their efforts to promote sustainability, as well as personally getting the pro-recycling message out to all parts of the university.
Recent economic troubles have forced GCI to rethink how they're getting that message across with their advertising campaign, which had been minimal to begin with.
Coordinating anything of that magnitude might seem like a daunting task, but for Maberry it's just one in a laundry list of activities he is involved in. In addition to being a resident assistant in Penobscot Hall, he is currently working on his senior thesis to earn a degree in history.
Maberry is most recognizable, however, for being one half of "Mike and Mike," hosts of a late night talk radio show on WMEB, UMaine's campus radio station. Maberry, along with broadcasting partner Mike Moody, often used the show as a forum for publicizing GCI's efforts until Moody's graduation brought an end to the show.
Those efforts currently include participation in the nationwide recycling competition known as "Recyclemania," which began on Jan. 17 and spans a period of ten weeks. Over 500 colleges and universities competed in 2009, recycling a total of nearly 70 million pounds of waste.
Maberry also hopes to host other events on campus to raise awareness of sustainability, including a "trashion show," where competitors create clothing out of recycled materials.
The group's current focus is on the First Year Resident Experience (FYRE) dorms, which Maberry says are recording very low recycling tallies this year.
GCI employs a staff of 12 employees and has a handful of volunteers. Maberry says he likes the small group atmosphere, but would never turn away an interested student. For information, Maberry is available via First Class, or at 581-3322, and also in his office in the basement of Androscoggin Hall.
I created this 60-second clip for the Refresh Your World contest sponsored by Pepsi and Mofilm. Although the clip is self-explanatory, I believe that I paint my world by getting to know people as a journalist and telling their stories to a large audience, creating a greater sense of community, even if that sense extends only as far as the college I attend.
I am a new husband, a new dad, and an aspiring teacher. I work in accounting at the University of Maine and dabble in the stock market in my spare time.
