[This is a backlog for a previous trading transaction. It may not fully represent my thinking at the time of the trading.]

I purchased 25 shares of MSFT $ $90.50 in my Datek account.

This is my first transaction in my actively managed portfolio. I was using part of the $6,832.05 proceeds from my 3/24/00 sale of MSFT option. (Commission was waived for signing up for paperless statements.) At that time I knew nothing about investment but had been tracking stock markets using MSN MoneyCentral portfolio tracker for sometime running a paper portfolio (which was pretty well as NASDAQ was running toward its peak). MSFT was falling $10 since I exercised my option two weeks in prior, so I intuitively believed MSFT represented a good value.

In retrospect it is clear that Microsoft was richly valued then, and holistically, my portfolio was too concentraded in the single stock of MSFT.

Also noteworthy is the timing: my first real trading experience coincided with the stock market peak in April 2000. :-)