Go Big; or How Silverstream Invested In Stonks
Sandbar seemed on edge as he spoke, “Silverstream, I’m only going to ask this once and as calmly as I can: what in Celestia’s name did you do?”
“I bought something called stonk!” the hippogriff answered with a big smile.
Smolder gave her a confused look, “Stonk?”
“I think she means stock,” Ocellus commented. She turned her attention back to Silverstream along with the rest of her friends, “Okay, so you bought stock, but in what company?”
The pink hippogriff smiled as she answered, “In a stair company! They’re called GrandStair!” Her bright expression didn’t change as she looked around the picnic table at her five friends and their looks of disbelief.
“I….” Gallus tried to speak before he paused for a moment. Then he started again, “What kind of a stair company has stock options? And why would you buy it?”
“GrandStair listed in business section of newspaper,” Yona pointed out on the newspaper that was laid in front of her. “Ticker symbol is GME.”
“GME?” Sandbar asked.
“It stand for ‘GrandStair Mobility Enterprises’,” Yona read from the paper. “It apparently publicly traded.”
Gallus waved his talons in the air, “Who cares what it’s called! I still want to know why Silverstream bought so much stock in this company! And how, too!”
“Well,” Silverstream began to explain, “I was talking with this business pony in line at Sugarcube Corner and they told me about the stonks market.”
“Stock market,” Ocellus corrected.
“Right, the stocks market. Anyway, apparently there are stocks for all sorts of companies! They then explained that the stocks for stairs have nowhere to go but up, which is right since stairs go up!” Silverstream said with a laugh and a bit of confidence in her voice.
Yona tilted her head in puzzlement, “Did friend Silverstream take financial advice from creature they met in bakery line?”
“Looks like it. Talk about an impulse buy,” Smolder answered.
The blue griffon still wasn’t convinced, “But how did you buy all this stock? You can’t even remember how to play Slides and Stairs half the time!”
Sandbar agreed, “Yeah, she keeps thinking the stairs go down.”
“You can go down stairs!” Silverstream quickly spoke up to defend herself.
Ocellus hung her head and sighed, “Oh no, not this again.”
“Okay, forget about that,” Smolder insisted, “but where did you get the money to buy the stock? And so much of it?”
“Well, I did have some of my allowance from home saved up and I did some odd jobs around Sweet Apple Acres during the harvest,” Silverstream explained, listing the items and counting them out on her talon. “Oh, I also found some money on the ground and I broke open Sandbar’s piggy bank.”
“You did what?!” Sandbar shouted.
“But it’s okay! I bought a lot of stock at a low price!” Silverstream proclaimed.
“Ah, so the tried and true tactic of ‘buy low and sell high’, right?” Ocellus asked.
Silverstream gave a puzzled look, “Sell?”
There was an odd silence at the table for a moment until Gallus broke it, “When it comes to stocks, don’t you have to eventually sell your stock?”
“Nuh-uh!” the hippogriff shook her head defiantly, “I’m going to hold on to this stock forever, and maybe even after that! To the moon!”
“Moon?” Yona repeated.
“Where Princess Luna was banished? Why would you want to go there?” Smolder asked.
Ocellus brought the conversation back, “Silverstream, you’ll have to eventually sell your shares back if you want to get any money back! That’s the problem with stocks, they’re very risky! It’s just short of gambling and you can lose everything in the blink of an eye! Just why would you choose to do this?”
Silverstream had a smile as she answered, “I like the stock!”
Gallus shook his head, “So it’s official: she’s doing all of this solely by her gut feeling.”
“And sheer determination!” Silverstream proudly added.
“And pure idiocy,” Smolder folded her limbs and snarked.
Silverstream agreed, “Yeah, that too!”
“You’re insane!” Sandbar shouted.
“And I’m gonna be rich!” the hippogriff claimed.
Yona pointed out, “But friend Silverstream just said they not selling stock.”
The hippogriff was growing more in her energy, “That’s right! And I’m not done! Can’t stop! Won’t stop! G-”
Smolder placed a claw on the nearly bouncing Silverstream to calm her, “Okay, how about this Silverstream: How about you tell us what your plan is for this.”
“Plan?” Silverstream parrotted.
“You know, what’s your exit strategy for this?” Gallus asked.
“What’s an exit strategy?”
Yona reworded, “What friend endgame?”
“Endgame?” she repeated again.
“She’s not getting any of this,” Sandbar raised a hoof up and started to rub his forehead.
Gallus snarked, “Try using smaller words.”
“Maybe this is some sort of game for her?” Smolder thought.
Ocellus interjected, “The stock market is not a game! It’s a huge gamble filled with so many risks!”
As if a lightbulb went off in her head, Silverstream spoke up, “Oh, you’re asking what I want to do with all that money? Well, I would like to have a pizza party.”
“Not exactly what I meant but at least it’s an answer,” Gallus commented.
“It’s that determination and idiocy again,” the dragon added. “To be fair, this is coming from the same hippogriff that I once saw eat a crayon.”
“It was purple, I thought it was grape flavored!” Silverstream fired back.
Sandbar interrupted the possible beginning of an argument, “Okay, but you still didn’t explain why you are taking such a huge risk. Haven’t you been paying attention to Professor Rarity’s Economics class?”
“Economics?” Silverstream said as she thought for a moment, “Oh wait, do you mean nap time?”
Smolder couldn’t help but smirk as she looked to her pony friend, “I think you can kiss all of the money she took from you good-bye, Sandbar.”
“But the reason why I’m telling you all of this,” Silverstream changed the subject, “is because I think all of you should buy stock too!”
“What?” Yona was in disbelief.
“You’re kidding,” Gallus said.
“No, I mean it! The pony I was talking to earlier told me if I buy more, the value goes up! And if all of my friends also buy stock, then the value goes up even more! Like stairs, stocks can only go up!” Silverstream was becoming more animated as she spoke.
“My money is already in the stocks against my will!” Sandbar angrily replied.
“Oh sure, I break a piggy bank one time and I’m known as a money thief!” the hippogriff got a little annoyed before continuing, “But, if we all buy the stock, we all will get the value to go up!”
“Wait, if we all buy a lot of stock at once, isn’t that market manipulation?” Ocellus asked.
“Don’t let the fear-mongering news scare you!” Silverstream said, “Those reports are meant to scare the common investor away! It’s the fat cat’s way of keeping us away, but our money is just as good as theirs!”
“What reports Silverstream talking about? And what cats?” Yona asked.
The hippogriff continued with her rambling, “Let’s go big! Buy the dip! Hold the line! Don’t sell until we reach the moon!”
“What’s with her and the moon all of a sudden?” Smolder shook her head.
“Silverstream, you’re basing all of this off a causal conversation with a pony at Sugarcube Corner!” Ocellus scolded, “By that logic, if some creature told you to jump off a bridge, woul-”
“Yes!” Silverstream quickly answered as she stood up from the picnic table. However, before she could move further, both Smolder and Gallus held her down.
Ocellus threw her hooves up in defeat, “She’s gone off the deep end.”
Gallus sighed, letting go of Silverstream as she stopped trying to move, “Perhaps, but I trust Silverstream on this.”
“Wow, he actually said it,” Smolder was a bit impressed with the griffon’s statement.
“If Silverstream’s gut feeling is telling her to buy, then I’m gonna buy,” Gallus stated. His face was still completely unsure, but the tone of his voice was backing up his friend.
“Eh, why not, count me in too,” Smolder said.
“Smolder!” Ocellus was shocked.
The dragon shrugged, “Why not? I got some money to burn.”
Looking to her other friends, the changeling asked, “Sandbar? Yona?”
“Yona not have much money, but Yona trust friend,” the yak smiled.
Without a word, Ocellus turned her attention to the earth pony.
Sandbar sighed, “If she’s still in, I’m still in.”
“Really?” Ocellus asked in surprise.
“Well, she did use my piggy bank money, so I don’t have too much of a choice.”
Ocellus raised a hoof up to her muzzle and bit it in worry. She did this for a few moments until she relented, “Okay, I give up. Count me in, as well.”
Silverstream cheered, “Yay! I promise, you all won’t regret it!”
------------------------------------------------------
“Three hours,” Gallus said with exhaustion. “We lost all of our money in only three hours. Just….how?!”
“I don’t know what happened! We all put our money in the stock at the same time,” Smolder recalled, “Shouldn’t that have been good for us?”
“Well, yeah, but didn’t we spread it to other stocks as well?” Sandbar asked.
“No,” Yona answered, “All money went to GME stock.”
“What? Why?” Ocellus was puzzled.
Sandbar thought aloud, “Isn’t there a saying about putting all your eggs in one basket?”
“Yeah, it’s good to put them all in one basket so you get more money, right?” Silverstream answered.
“What? No! It’s that if you put all your eggs in one basket, there are no alternatives if that fails! That’s why you don’t put everything into a single stock! We needed to diversify our portfolio!” Ocellus shouted. “And why did we put everything into the stock for a stair company?!”
Smolder raised her eyebrows in surprise, “Wow, I’ve never seen Ocellus this mad before.”
Gallus was still in stunned about the loss, “It crashed. The whole stock nosedived into the ground. It was like watching Professor Rainbow Dash trying to sub for Headmare Twilight’s chemistry class….”
Yona added, “Yona still not sure which was more destructive.”
“Well, we all just lost our personal money, while Professor Rainbow Dash’s subbing caused the School of Friendship to lose an entire wing of the main building,” Sandbar recalled.
“So, about same,” Yona commented.
“Apparently when it comes to stocks and market economics, we only have three or four brain cells amongst the six of us,” Ocellus commented, rubbing the temple of her head with her hoof in an effort for her pounding headache to go away.
Smolder waved one of her claws flippantly, “Please, you’re giving us way too much credit. We all lost our money because Silverstream, and I quote, ‘liked the stock’. That was it.”
Silverstream had a smile on her face as she looked at her depressed and defeated friends at the table. “Well, we might have lost a lot of money, but perhaps the real wealth we gained were the friends we made along the way?”
“No, no it wasn’t,” Gallus quickly said back, “We’re broke, this whole ordeal sucked, and I hate you so much right now.”
“But weren’t friends already friends before this?” Yona asked.
“We all were friends before this, Yona,” Smolder answered, “We were all friends and we had money.”
“I just wanted my piggy bank money back,” Sandbar sighed. He turned to Ocellus and added on, “Next time I want to take part in a get-rich-quick scheme, just tell me to sell my blood.”
“I will, but not around Gallus,” Ocellus replied, “he actually might.”
Gallus called out, “I heard that.”
“So, we all went big in the stock market, lost all of our money, and now are suffering from depression. What now, Silverstream?” Smolder glared at the hippogriff.
“How about pizza?” Silverstream offered.
“With what money?” Gallus asked as he gestured.
“I still have some money left over from this morning! I was gonna buy us all sweets from Sugarcube Corner, but I forgot when I started doing all this stonks stuff!”
“Stocks,” Ocellus corrected.
Silverstream nodded, “Right, right. Anyway, how about it?”
“Yona does like pizza,” the yak seemed to really like the idea.
“Pizza does seem to have the power to cure all of one’s problems,” Ocellus was also warming up to the idea.
“And you don’t have to be rich to enjoy it,” Smolder commented.
“Sure, I guess I can back another Silverstream idea today,” Gallus sighed with a smile.
Sandbar sighed, “Alright, fine. But I get to choose the toppings.”
This statement didn’t sit well with the rest of the group.
“What? I don’t want to eat hay pizza again!”
“It’s better than gem pizza!”
“You leave gems out of this! It’s an acquired taste!”
“Yona wants everything pizza! Double everything!”
“We can’t afford that! Plain is fine!
The group continued to debate about the toppings until the sun started to set.
END