Financial people aren't smarter than you.

Fidelity must be dumb or something. Monday we trotted our little dubloon certificates for shares in Smelly Jack’s Treasure Chest and Loan into Washington so we could sign ‘em over to Fidelity who’d hold the shares in “street name.” You figure if a brokerage would have a pyramid tip radiating light beams as its logo, then it must know what it’s doing. So I was quite surprised when I logged on later and discovered that though we’d deposited 130 dubloons, they’d credited us with 230.

Well, I think, that’s so much more generous than a toaster that they probably didn’t intend that as a lovely welcome gift. Of course I give the briefest whiff of a notion to super-quickly putting in a sell-all-dubloons order online, but I imagine that their accounting apartment could be a little sharper than the data entry people. So I call them instead. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am, I’m back to 130 dubloons.

Fine then. Until today when I get a zippy yellow and red, extremely urgent, DHL Express envelope containing our original 30 dubloon certificate attached to a note requesting that Jeff sign away his rights to those 30 dubloons to me. But he already signed such a form. In D.C. On Monday. I was even wearing good shoes, so I remember. Several phone calls later, Fidelity’s sending me a special, certified, overnight envelope so I can return the certificate to them since they had the right paperwork after all. Good. I would hate to have to put my shoes back on to get this straightened out. But now I’m pretty sure they’re dumb.

I must be dumb or something too. I tried to sell 120 dubloons yesterday, but couldn’t quite squeak it in before closing bell, 4 pm EST. So I tried today, this time as a “limit order” which means I’d only sell my shares in Smelly Jack IF the per dubloon price matches yesterday’s closing price. That didn’t happen. Smelly Jack evidently sprung a bit of a leak today, and this naturally shows up on my Fidelity account page in technicolor, most unreassuring red. So what do I do tomorrow? Wait until Smelly Jack’s mast is listing a bit more, then unload it before my account page glows and even glarier shade of red? Chuckle, and say, nonchalantly what’re a few dubloons? I’m all about diversifying and sell at what tomorrow’s market will bear? I fear that I lack the cool, incisive demeanor I need for this business. But it’s the only business I’ve got at the moment, so a decision must be reached. And will be.