We had our “make-up” session Monday to give Ellen the full platform, uninterrupted by football distractions, to share her knowledge about the markets, where equities and debt are trading, what happened with GameStop, and where she thought the future of the economy was heading (which was fortunately positive). We were lucky to have one of our regulars, B, who is the finance world, co-captain the talk. We had a surprisingly good turnout, I believe in part to support our regulars taking the stage, but also in part because finance feels like a mystery to too many of us. As people rolled in we talked about the Super Bowl, our favorite commercials of course, of COVID. And then it was all about finance. Ellen spoke to us with respect and intelligence and an assumption that we understood what we she was talking about at a sophisticated level, and she patiently took our questions and explained to us the details when we didn’t. It was a really great conversation and like a one-room schoolhouse we were all “taught” what we needed to know at the level we needed to learn it, smoothly and patiently. People shared information about how they were trading, and who was helping them invest. It was noted especially that we were fortunate to have this platform to converse, share and learn because so many people, so many educated people, don’t have an understanding of investing and become vulnerable to bubbles of day trading frenzy or miss out on the benefits of investing. We are certainly in uncertain times, and any semblance of a life preserver of sorts being thrown to us as we bounce among these weird waves is welcome, and this conversation very much felt like a bit of help.
Monday, February 8, 2021 – Finance with Ellen
