My Money (And Almost My House) Lost In The Wire

Posted on May 10, 2024 by Tom Trimbath

My Money Lost In The Wire

You Can Not Make This Stuff Up

This is one of those things that is supposed to be funny, maybe in a year or more. This was supposed to be a post about the new great episode in my life: moving into a tiny house and being debt-free. That may still happen, but as I type this, it has been one of my most traumatic days in years, maybe decades. As you read this, hopefully, it has all been resolved, and laughter will ensue. I type it now, during a lull dictated by the close of business on ‘Wall Street’ because I don’t want to forget too many details and how it feels. The courageous may read on.

Before

Today was the day when the funds from my house/home sale were to arrive; one part to the sellers of a tiny house, the larger part to me. Finally, Debt-Free Again. Weirdly enough, I am debt-free, except for a massive credit card bill I’m building as I live in a motel. My house sold. The funds were dispersed. Everything looked headed to a nice dinner this evening, keys tomorrow, finally having a new address and getting things out of storage.

1) The mortgage and the home equity loan are paid off. Celebrate the retirement of over a quarter of a million dollars in debt.

2) I signed all the right forms. So did everyone else, evidently. The first escrow company split the funds into two transactions: one for me, one for the seller of the tiny home. Nice. All the seller had to do was sign, and we’d exchange keys – which, as I write it, sounds like innuendo.

3) Time to take a nap in celebration before heading back over to Whidbey Island, where I had lived, from Port Townsend, where I was moving to. 

4) But first, the phone rings. Wiggle through this and re-read as you wish.

The seller received their money. Yay! But not all of it. Evidently, the amount sent to them was a little less than they expected – and they were right. 

No big problem. I could pay the difference from what I received, which would be appropriate; but I received nothing. Zero. No money. No notice.

Could I pay the difference by credit card? I want the transaction to complete so I get the house and they can close that episode in their life. No.

Pardon me as I check my notes. It was about now that I started taking notes, possibly missing a step or three.

5) Call escrow #1. Can they reconcile the difference? They sent the wrong sum. Can they correct the error that way? No. The funds have to come from the transaction and 100% of the funds were dispersed. I should check with my bank (Schwab) to find when the wire transfer will be recorded.

6) Call Schwab. They have no record of even an attempt at a wire transfer. They step it up a notch. They can’t find any wire transfers anything like something coming to me.

7) Eventually I convinced the escrow company to talk to Schwab because I have no access to any of the pertinent information. Besides, they know the official terms. I don’t. It looks like it should’ve worked, but it didn’t. For a while there we were in three-way conference call that confirmed that nothing was wrong or inappropriate. There’s no evidence of any tampering, either. 

8) Somewhere in there, I backed out (not blacked out, but backed out) because there was nothing I could add.

9) Eventually, I get brought back in so they can give me the latest news. Still nothing inappropriate and no record of any monies in transit. As anxious as I already was, I was startled to learn that they had elevated it to a three-way with the Fed, and the Fed couldn’t resolve it and actually elevated it to an Incident Report. That is so uncommon the reference number is smaller than an old-time phone number. 

Somewhere along the line, another bank was brought in as well, but I couldn’t keep track of calls I wasn’t in.

10) Worrying about the seller had a corollary. If they don’t get their money, I don’t get their house, and I don’t have an address – except for two packed storage units, and I am not allowed to sleep there and the sanitary facilities don’t exist. Renting is not an obvious option in this market. Buying a place takes weeks. What am I going to do? Except replay that in my head on a quick repeating loop. 

A heck of a day, and dealing with all of it from a motel room where almost all of my office records and supplies are in storage, including the unit on the island.

I say ‘a heck of a day’ because, even though we’re in the same country on the same continent, it is a big country and a big continent, and the Fed closes on East Coast time. Three more hours added to an interminable (hyperbole) wait time. The world’s enormous economy, but we’ll wait on bankers hours. One reason I am typing this is to keep me occupied until 9PM, which is midnight East Coast, which is one of the possible times the funds might transfer (magically?). 

Sip a beverage. Breathe. Shake out the fingers. Return to typing.

This may all resolve with waiting and patience. One reason I’m making this life change is because I’ve had financial stresses for too many years, over a decade. It is affecting my health. This isn’t making it better. 

What has been making it manageable has been friends and those involved who have listened. Trying to manage this alone would feel like suddenly being poor and homeless and alone – and that happens. I don’t think it is going to happen to me, but I understand and feel that possibility.

It may just take patience and waiting.

It may just require giving patience another day for waiting by asking the seller for an extension.

It may just require giving patience another week for waiting by asking the seller for an extension.

The funds are under the FDIC limit, so I ‘should’ be insured, but I doubt those funds would arrive in time. Does insurance ever work that quickly?

And some friends have mentioned lawsuits, but they take much too long; and are hopefully unnecessary.

Assurances are welcome, but learning that the Fed, The Fed!, said there was no evidence of theft is an authoritative assurance. That doesn’t resolve anything, but at least we’re more likely talking about bureaucratic actions, not criminal ones.

I intend to only post this after the issue is resolved. I have no doubt that I’ll learn a clearer version of the story eventually. My mind was in resolution mode, not documentarian mode. You may not be surprised that my handwriting became hard to read as emotions rose as complexities rose. 

It’s before 8PM. I won’t type for the sake of typing. My fingers would complain. I’ll log in at random times, I’m sure. 

One thing struck me, and I usually don’t use that term. I realized that I had done nothing wrong. A mistake was made at escrow, and funds were dispersed so expertly that they couldn’t be recovered; both things leading to putting my home purchase at risk and my heart rate climbing to uncomfortable levels. And here’s one point I wanted to make to anyone who has read this far: weird things happen, even when there’s no one at fault. No malice. Just a simple mistake in a complicated, possibly-too-fast world. 

I hope to get the keys tomorrow. If I do, I’ll open the door, say hello, walk back and forth once or twice, then free the houseplants that are sequestered in my car, get the frozen (ha!) foods into the freezer, make sure there a towel, soap, and toilet paper in the bathroom – and take a break. Getting the futon mattress into the bedroom – that may be a separate story for the blog I plan to start about life in a tiny house for man who is 65, over six foot, and overweight. Stay tuned.

The Next Day

Ah, CitiBank, Schwab’s bank, held the funds for some reason. Two of the world’s largest public financial institutions are getting in the way. A reason to work with smaller companies?

Oh, add a layer of “You can’t make this stuff up.”

Keep in mind the people you can’t see and aren’t hearing from: numerous employees at two brokerages, two intermediary, banks, two escrow companies, Schwab, and the buyer (me) and the seller. Multiply the hours by the people and witness thousands of dollars spent because one bank did something random. An the American economy is considered efficient?

Here comes an analogy. 

You probably know about the security lines at airports. It has been years since I’ve flown, but I recall them. There’s a purposeful random element. Randomly, they pull some luggage, and sometimes a person, out of the line – just to check. Organized crime doesn’t like randomness, I guess. Imagine how that person’s day went, even if they were completely innocent. And do you still assume it wasn’t completely random?

Schwab’s bank, Citibank, did that to my money, as I understand it. I have to emphasize “as I understand it” because Citibank is so far removed from me that I could only hear what others heard, who then passed it along to someone who could tell me. Personal service? 

There was no fraud alert, because there was no fraud. There were no reports in the regular channels, as I understand it, because the monies were shunted off to an investigation unit. It was simply random, without warning. 

Hours of phone calls and a few in-person meetings came down to everyone being told that they couldn’t do anything except wait. Nameless people held people I know hostage to an unresolvable issue that directly impacted whether I would be without a home.

Fortunately, I have an understanding boss, and they have a new hire who is excellent.  (Ironically, it is for a non-profit doing what they can by actually building affordable housing – in a county I just moved from because it is too expensive for me to live there. Applause for Island Roots Housing in Island County, WA.)

My houseplants will spend another day in the Jeep, their temporary greenhouse. 

I’ll see what food I can salvage. The ice packs and styrofoam coolers should help.

I hope to get the keys to the house because…the story so far is about the money.

I don’t get the house yet.

There were two wire transfers, you may recall from reading what’s above. The other one was for the bulk of the purchase price of the tiny house, but the transfer was for the wrong amount. It was shy by so many thousands of dollars that I needed the money in the other transfer. It has been a cascading financial fiasco. (Thought up that term and had to use it.)

The good news is that Citibank finally released the funds! Schwab passed them along! I can get the extra money to the escrow company so they can pay the seller, and I can get the keys – after I wait another day.

Citibank/Schwab delayed the wire transfer so late in their East Coast bankers hours that when I submitted the extra wire transfer, it was past the deadline for a transfer within the day even though the West Coast business day wasn’t over.

Enter the brokers who now run around getting a document signed to extend the transaction – hoping that the wire transfer gets to the seller’s escrow agent in time to get me the keys before the end of the week. It would be really handy to get the keys because contractors are scheduled to arrive to hook up some utilities.

You may not be surprised to learn that my assessment of the credibility of the system has drastically diminished.

I expected to complete this story and post it, but without the keys, the story isn’t over. 

At least I have the funds and reasons for hope.

Much of this day’s chapter was written from Mom’s Laundromat in Port Townsend. I could hear my Carhartts bashing themselves against the dryer wall. I’d been living in them most of the week as I moved. Almost everything I own is in storage. My Jeep is large enough to hold four houseplants, one large cooler of food (that’s warming), tools, and the last boxes that are filled with the stray things that weren’t packed during the more organized part of the move. But hey! I found the charger for my old iPad so I can at least read some old books. (The Rincewind arc of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. 

Is there more to say? Always, but I’d be amazed if you haven’t heard or read much more than enough for now. The local Thai restaurant served such large portions last night that I have leftovers for tonight. 

The next morning

Even before the Port Townsend bells bonged out the 7th hour, I received an email declaring the second wire transfer to be complete. Considering everything else that happened, I’ll wait until the escrow company says so, too. After that are the official recording with the County, me getting the keys, and a new set of posts starting up about My Tiny Experiment.

(Let’s see. Get keys. Get internet. Get domain name and URL. Get web site. Write and post and chronicle one story about finding affordable housing, frugality, and simplicity.)

The plants seem to be recovering well. I hope that happens for all of us. Now, to set up a cot until I have time to set up a futon until I have time to buy a Murphy bad. This place is tiny!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Debt Free Again

Posted on May 7, 2024 by Tom Trimbath

I am debt-free, again. I am also officially homeless. But, let’s not quibble. (Such a strange word. But, I digress.) Today, May 7, 2024, I officially relinquished my ownership of the only house of mine that truly felt like a home. I did so for more money than I paid for it in 2007, which is why I should officially gain ownership and access to my next house and hoped-for home on May 9. A significant sum of money will remain as cash, at least for a while.

Debt-free, again. How often has that been true? Except for incidental credit card debt, and a couple of small car loans (small cars, and small loans), I didn’t have signficant debt (aka a mortgage) until 1988. Bought a house because I ‘should’, but I shouldn’t’ve. Eventually got out of debt by getting out of an unfortunate marriage in 2005. Had a year-and-a-half of renting that was great because it was in downtown Langley, a tourist town; but the landlord/landlady decided to let the house run down, so I bought the house that I just sold. Now, for about 48 hours – oh, wait – for an indefinite time, I am debt-free. This house, this tiny house, is being acquired for cash. Mine. Sweet.

Mine. The house is, or will be, mine. The land will be rented. Still, no debt. After a dozen years of financial misfortune, and hence existential dread, my mental and physical health should improve. Whew.

The home I sold deserves better ownership and caretaking than I was able to provide. I look forward to seeing how they improve it. I wish them both well.

I wish me well, too.

The world is in chaos, and likely to become more chaotic. Maybe that chaos will mean a debt jubilee of biblical proportions. All debts forgiven! Iceland did something like that with mortgages during the Great Recession, but I doubt it will happen in the US, soon.

The world is in chaos, so I’m doing what I can to simplify my life. Getting rid of a mortgage and a home equity loan means fewer pesky bills. During the Great Recession, I almost lost my house. That’s a trauma I don’t want to relive.

Does this description seem a little lacking in raw emotion? I know several people are telling me to celebrate. I agree. I should. I ‘should’. I will. My brother the ace accountant (he’s more than that, but that is a separate – and fascinating – story for him to tell) agreed. It takes time for pent-up stress to unwind, and it will probably take a while for the lack of debt payments to become apparent by their absence. Then, I’ll spend. I won’t get spendy, but my grubbies are fraying grubbies. Fans of distressed clothes might think they’re worth something. I’m currently a 40 waist and 34 inseam, in case you are curious.

The spreadsheet will tell the tale, or show me the money, or maybe get narrower as there are fewer columns for liabilities.

I’d like to make two points simultaneously, but physics demands I type them in series.

This blog is about personal finance, in case you were wondering or had forgotten. Fancy finance packages are available, but if you’ve been doing nothing, then a simple spreadsheet may be enough. For me, whenever I feel like it, I check all of my bank accounts and loans, add in the value of my house via Zillow, Redfin, or Realtor, add and substract appropriately, and check the sum. I also graph it to better see if there are any trends.

date / house / IRA / stocks / main bank / local bank / business bank / PayPal / … / mortgage / credit card / car loan // net worth

Usually I check when it is time to write checks. Yes, I still write checks, but only to the firms that I want a paper record of because I don’t trust them.

These next few days I’ll check it daily. I’m curious to see how much my networth fluctuates with such large transactions. I expect my net worth to go down. Selling a house generates a lot of cash, but it is an asset trade that costs money. Improvements, moving expenses, taxes, brokerage fees, etc. happen. That’s fine. I get something from it.

I’ve only sold a house I owned because there was a good, life-changing reason. This time is to reduce my anxiety level in a chaotic time. That first house I bought because I succumbed to societal peer pressure. Since then, my house sales have been for jobs and relationships, basically, love and money – or the hope for either and each.

This time is for simplicity, but it is also for money, or at least reducing its associated stresses; and for love, for respecting me and my needs. Despite being exhausted (oy! is moving a pain), I’m already feeling better, my dreams are improving, and so is my outlook. 

Whidbey Island was a very good place for where I was personally. Now, it is time to move on. I haven’t traveled as much as many of my friends, but I’ve traveled enough to know that every place has someone who loves it. My house, my home, was sweet; but, I see it as being part of the wet Salish Sea region called Cascadia. From Mt. Shasta in California to Juneau in Alaska is terrain with mountains, volcanoes, forests, rivers, lakes, and an ocean. That works for me! I’m simply sliding a bit north and west from where I’ve been for almost two decades. 

For anyone fortunate or lucky enough to have a house, considering such a life change isn’t simply hanging a sign outside. Yes, it can be. But done right, it also involves weeks of packing, clearing, and cleaning. If necessary, hire it out. Doing it yourself isn’t free or easy. It may cost less money, but it can take more time. I don’t want to know my total bill for renting storage units on both sides of the Sound, renting U-Hauls (and being glad for them), paying for the ferry rides, eating poorly and more expensively, … The list is long.

Port Townsend, my new home, rings a bell on the hour in very Victorian fashion. (Check Port Townsend for their Victorian fashions, too.) Nine rings of the bell and a long day of moving and cleaning encourage me to bring this to a close. I thank everyone who has read or heard my tales as I struggled through the last decade or so. Those who simply listened were the most precious. As some friends who are financial professionals pointed out, odds are someone will get hit with a perfect storm of bad luck. Nothing is guaranteed. Yesterday’s marathon move was done in downpours and wind, almost hypothermia weather. Today felt twenty degrees warmer, and was definitely sunnier. I hope my personal storm has passed.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Moving From What To Why

Posted on May 3, 2024 by Tom Trimbath

A friend, “Can you see the end of the tunnel?”
Me, “Yes, but through very squinty eyes. Moving is exhausting!”

If all goes according to plan (that’s an old phrase that is well to remember), within a week I’ll have successfully moved out of my home and into a new house (hopefully home).

That excerpt was from a quick conversation between two neighbors on a neighborhood street in a neighborhood that is either a suburban version of rural life, or a rural version of suburbia. It was late afternoon and both of us were weary from chores and dealing with obligations. We both also appreciated that weariness is normal in today’s world. Not complaining, simply mutual venting in camaraderie.

Maybe that’s healthy. Compared to most of the people on the planet, we are having good lives. We have the essentials, or at least those that are typical in the US. (We still lack universal health care and a societal safety net, but hey, some day we’ll catch up to the rest of the world.) And yet, responsible people readily fill their lives with helping others, or making difficult personal choices.

Selling a home involves an inordinate amount of paperwork. The seller typically has less to do, and yet, a few hours earlier, I signed about a dozen documents (or at least that many pages) to prove that I approved to sell my house to those buyers for this amount of money under these conditions. Pardon the euphamisms and pronouns but the specific nouns aren’t as important to my point as if their quantity and importance. Buyers have more to do, especially if they are using a mortgage. 

I so look forward to the simpler life of fewer entities involved in the essentials of my life. This is a first major step; with the next steps being at least a year away. Stay tuned for that.

A different friend (who also may be moving), “Are you looking forward to the move?”
Me, “Right now, I’m looking forward to sleeping in.”

For the last several weeks, almost every day has been either cleaning, clearing, decluttering, donating, recycling, or turning into refuse everything I own. And still, there’s an amazing amount to label, pack, and store – even if it is only temporary. Read I Thought I Was A Minimalist for more of that story. An update that is also a lesson is that, it hasn’t been until I am down to about a dozen boxes that I’m finally finding I’ve packed something too early. Two storage units are almost full of tools, unsold art inventory, history, and things like gifted art and books and reminders of friends. 

The paperwork challenges and fatigues the brain. The sorting and shipping and packing fatigues it too, but also stresses the physical. A friend who is getting ready to move (there seems to be a lot of that going on) made me realize it is easy to pack a hundred pounds of stuff every day. After twenty days, that’s more than a ton; and we’ve both been doing the same thing for several weeks. Unfortunately, dining on a U-Haul kind of day is not aerobic, hence I might have to buy new pants because I’ve eaten too many chicken strips and fries.

These reflections are based on what I am experiencing, mostly because I have fewer privacy concerns than some of my friends. And here’s the third element.

Take your pick between emotion and spirit, but that subjective sense of who a person is, is challenged by a move. Our identities are defined by where and how we live. Why is generally assumed based on convention. When is a given as we pass through phases in a life. 

Ultra-minimalists (those people who own fewer than 200 items) and people rich enough to hire out the brain work to lawyers and brokers, and the physical work to contractors and movers, both may skip the tests and trials.  Minimalists have practiced the exercise. With enough wealth, changing houses is more like changing hotels than changing homes.

How did we go from the mindset of nomads who can break camp in a few hours, whether it was tipis, tents, or yurts, and move with no paperwork or duct tape?

They asked about the light at the end of the tunnel. Skipping old jokes, I can finally see it from here, but it feels less like a promised land and more like the end of a marathon with the hope of a massage. Planning for the future comes later.

Layer on changes of address, keeping friends informed so friends can stay in contact, and continually wondering about paperwork, box limits, and existential queries leaves me amazed at everyone I helped buy and sell houses when I was a broker. It’s almost enough to convince me never to move again, or to move soon for practice but also a culling of boxes never opened and emotional chapters to leave in the past.

It’s earlier than usual on a Friday evening, but I’ve already napped enough to convince me that my body wants more recuperation before the next major push: emptying my home, filling the storage units, cleaning a house that is soon to be someone else’s, and peeking ahead at official address changes for me and my businesses.

(writers note: I try to always carry pen and paper to the point that some see it as odd. That first conversation above sparked a different title and content, but I didn’t write it down during time with a friend. I wonder what it was.)

To everyone who goes through similar trials, cheers. I’d toast you, but I think tonight’s a night for ibuprofen instead of alcohol. Good luck to all. Thanks for staying tuned. New chapters arriving daily. I’ll even write some of them down.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A New Gig – Island Roots Housing

Posted on April 24, 2024 by Tom Trimbath

Add this to the mix of the weird and wonderful. I signed the contract to be a Communications Consultant for a non-profit devoted to providing housing for the rest of us. Island Roots Housing

“Island Roots Housing is a homegrown nonprofit advancing affordable housing options for generations to come. An offshoot of Goosefoot Community Fund, we are creating affordable housing that enhances the vibrancy and livability of Island County for everyone.“

Happy to help. I’m a fan of Island County (search through this blog for Whidbey Island or Island County). Really, I am a fan of not being in The Big City, or Greater Suburbia (money and other things making it all negotiable, of course). Rural counties have special needs. I think urban models have difficulties when they encounter the land of septic tanks and roads that never saw a grid.

Search through this blog for Tiny House, Tiny Home, or Affordable Housing, and find years of posts about tinies. Spread out into work I’ve done for Curbed/Seattle and 360modern.com and find more. Finally, I get to move into one. I get to meet my material in reality. (recent post)

The kicker is that I am moving into a Tiny House that is Not in Island County. And the reason for that is money. (Is $1700/month a good enough reason to move?)

Irony is having fun with me, and I suspect it isn’t done.

Island Roots is not building tiny houses. They’re more conventional because creating any housing is a big enough challenge. NIMBY happens.

Parts of the US economy are doing stellar. Wealth is obvious in tourist towns. Notice, however, how many of the baristas are bicycling in out of necessity, not choice. Notice the parking lots a bit removed from the stores and see cars that look forward to some maintenance, that may be deferred because the rent must be paid before a ding is pounded out.

Island Roots Housing is starting small. I am only now learning if they want to grow. I do know, that regardless of its size, millions of people are hunting for solutions that work in this era. We’re far removed from 1954. Things have changed and old approaches are no longer solutions. I cheer anyone who is organizing such efforts. I also cheer anyone who has the resources and skills to frugally build their own sustainable house sustainably.

Hmm. Maybe that’s next after the My Tiny Experiment? Nah. I’d contract it out. But who knows? I’m me and I don’t know what I will do. You are invited to stay tuned to me, Island Roots, and anyone trying to find new solutions within the anachronisms that somehow persist.

A New Gig – Island Roots Housing
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

FATE – One Company One Story

Posted on April 20, 2024 by Tom Trimbath

Welcome to another story and another video in my One Company One Story series.
This time, Fate Therapeutics (FATE).

Here comes the amateur legalese.

I began investing in companies and their stocks in the late 70s, but am Not a certified investment professional.

My style and history of investing is described in Dream. Invest. Live., a book I wrote by request – which came out as the Great Recession (the Second Great Depression) began. Don’t underestimate luck. Oops.

My personal finance blog (a blog about my finances) is: https://trimbathcreative.net/

I am Not an investment professional. This is Not financial advice.

“To produce better cell therapies, we apply our proprietary iPSC product platform to create multiplexed-engineered, clonal master iPSC lines having preferred biological properties.” – Fate Technologies

“So that, as clear as is the summer’s sun.” – Folger Shakespeare Library

Or not.

They (Fate Therapeutics) use special stem cells to treat cancers and autoimmune diseases, or at least they hope to. Investing in biotech requires trusting to luck, or learning a lot of arcane words that are more accurate but not necessarily more descriptive to those of us without advanced degrees in biology, medicine, chemistry, and things like that. (Disclaimer: My degree is in aerospace and ocean engineering. In my opinion, Fate’s technology is tougher than rocket science.) The ‘hope to’ part comes in because they are an early-stage company. They have a few treatments in Phase 1 clinical trials, which is one step past lab studies, but at least a couple more studies away from commercialization and treating the general public – as I understand it.

Fate is yet another classic risk/reward tradeoff. Developing treatments for combating one cancer is big enough. Dealing with more than one can have a multiplier effect. Adding autoimmune treatments is a similar broad branch that is approached from a narrower beginning. Cancer and autoimmune diseases are paired because they both can be influenced by controlling cell death. Cells that don’t die can lead to cancer. (As I understand it.) Cells that die too readily is one way to describe autoimmune disorders. (As I understand it.)

The risk is that novel technologies must be proven in an already heavily conservative industry: ultimately, healthcare. The reward is that many existing treatments are not as effective as desired, so there is an unmet need for breakthroughs.

Fate is not the only biotech that has realized this. The current industry is enormous and can be very ineffective. Trying to get a breakthrough to break through is difficult, expensive, and there are many competitors aware of the situation. But which one will succeed?

While it may be fun to make fun of their description, it is also necessary. Biotechs have enormous responsibilities, so must be precise, even at the cost of confusing the uninitiated. That’s where there’s an advantage to the investor who is willing to learn more than a less-determined investor. The treatments may have high demand, but many investors want simpler investments. Lower demand can lead to lower prices, which can be an opportunity.

Take a look at the $FATE hashtag on Twitter (won’t call it X), and see lots of autobot traffic but very little actual human commentary.

Maybe it makes more sense to use the names they use on their web site: Stem Cells and Killer T Cells.

I have invested in companies that use similar approaches, which helps me; but even with that background, I will learn more before doing anything more.

Google Finance
Google Finance

After lingering under $10 for much of its early years, FATE spiked to over $100 in January 2021. The stock closed at $4.79 on April 19, 2024, so evidently, that spike didn’t stick. It is an example of how radically such stocks can move. While it looks like not much is happening, its twelve-month trading range is from under $2 to over $8. On a normal stock, that would be worth noting. As with many biotechs, such swings are possible because science, funding, and competition can dramatically change several times between now and the targeted commercialization.

I don’t know what’s going to happen; but, I hope they survive and thrive. I’ll be watching.

The video: https://youtu.be/oADCte3p9P8

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I Thought I Was A Minimalist

Posted on April 12, 2024 by Tom Trimbath

Look at them sitting there on the floor, their boxes open like a nest of baby birds waiting to be fed. I’m moving. So is everything in my house that isn’t nailed down. That’s what happens when I sell one house and prepare to move to another. I’m moving. Ive considered myself somewhat of a minimalist. So, where’d all this stuff come from?

For those who want to catch up on the story so far, browse back through recent posts to learn more about my Tiny House experiment. This week’s update: inspections and an appraiser, and I don’t know how that story is going to proceed. I do know that my arms aren’t skinny enough to do some of the things that need to be done. More about that later; in the meantime, I apologize to the spiders I had to disturb.

Any minimalism I have is largely due to not having much as I grew up. I had more than my older brothers, but in retrospect, lots of the kids around us had a lot more. I was lucky, however, because my parents’ frugal ways meant I didn’t have to take out a loan to go to college. (And yes, it was a different era. $833/quarter, as I recall. I’m trying to remember if that included room and food.)

It didn’t take much to move me from Pittsburgh to Seattle. A chest of drawers. An old box spring metal frame for a bed. No other furniture except a door for a desk and a table held up by cinder blocks. Skip forward about three years, and it was handy having almost nothing because I moved back to college in Virginia (VPI&SU) for my Masters. Skip forward three years, and I’d finished that, got my job back (an epic and dramatic story), and actually bought a kitchen table and a living room set. Note: no bed, just a futon on the floor. I write all of that to pass along this. As I sold that house because I got married (temporarily), prospective buyers commented on the house being vacant – even before I packed up anything. Is that minimal enough?

Intervening years brought more furniture, but divide by two, and after my divorce, I was able to move with one truckload. Little has changed since then. But something has. Even as friends commented on how little I owned, somehow, I’ve accumulated 19 years of stuff. Maybe I finally have enough boxes, but oy! One storage unit filling on Whidbey Island. One storage unit in Port Townsend just leased, where I’m heading. And there’s still a house full of stuff.

Well, yes and no. I’ll spare you those details, but this move has been an incredible journey through accumulated history. It is hard to not have stuff. Maybe moving more often would help.

So, about those empty-mouthed boxes. They are mostly full, but waiting for a last few bits. These boxes have been more pivotal than most. They are art. Some are from my artistic friends, which I consider Art. None are pretentious pieces of ART. Most are my photos that I enjoy but easily drop into critique mode. That’s the nature of many artists. It was the boxing of the art that made the move visceral. It was seeing the bare walls without art on them. I hadn’t realized that without the art, my home was easier to describe as just a house.

With that many boxes, am I still a minimalist? I think so. I’ve been packing for weeks, amongst other things, of course. After all of those boxes and trips to the storage unit, donation sites, the recycle yards, and the dump, I still haven’t fundamentally changed the way I live. Boxes on boxes. Spiders dislodged. Dust, oy, dust! And I struggle to think of anything I’m missing. The DVD player is gone, so I miss that, but it was near the end of its useful life. Aside from that? Not much is missing from my core life.

As I sit here typing this post, I know that soon this chair will be donated. My tiny house is going to have a lot higher percentage of folding furniture. My 26″? TV/monitor would look out of place. I can see a microwave that will carry its rust into the dump. So, there will be changes; but, I’m realizing that what is in those boxes may stay there for years, even if I move to a larger place later in life.

Boxes of other authors’ books can be a casual drive from the tiny to the storage unit. Boxes of my books wouldn’t seem like much because all 18 books fit in less than half a box, but some of those books have dedicated boxes of background material, and presentation material for when I do talks and such. Unsold inventory will hopefully find a home, but many artists can paper their walls with yet-to-be-bought productions. There are also boxes of photos: personal and artistic and artistic-for-sale. I’m 65, so figure one box of memorabilia for every decade after turning ten. Family heirlooms are more passed around than passed down, and things that are too precious to trash and shuttled around hoping to find a home. And then there are the tools, hiking gear, bicycling gear, etc. Hopefully, they’ll get used after the move (which is within sight of Olympic National Park), but by simple bulk, they may have to live in storage – up front, preferably.

Lots of boxes.

But hardly any impact on my daily life.

I keep thinking about that.

One of the realities of any business transaction, and selling a house is a legal contractual ordeal, is that it is sometimes necessary to start over. Someone has to back out, or odd clauses surprise everyone, or interest rates change too much, etc. What would I have to do? Basically, nothing.

If this buyer has difficulties, my house would be back on the market, the boxes would be tidied up, I might re-arrange the storage unit, maybe buy a new DVD player (scandalous), but generally live as I live.

Stuff can own a person’s life. Things can pile up so high and deep that things get lost among the things. How many stuffed storage units are abandoned and forgotten about? They should have a show for that. (I know they do.) Every thing becomes one more thing to track and store. Another chore.

For me, this exercise has been a physical exercise (books and archival-framed wall art are heavy). It has also been a mental exercise. Go through the list of what, why, when, how for every piece. Move a lot and get through a lot. Move every other decade or so – and be glad I can get rid of things now, and to know why I have, what I have, how and when I got it, and whether I truly need it.

With that many boxes, am I still a minimalist? I think so, because my stuff doesn’t own me, and I know my stuff.

Tomorrow is a major hurdle. I’m prepared for a stumble, just in case. Much of modern real estate transactions is out of the direct control of the buyer and seller. I’ve been a real estate broker, and I am gladly not worrying those details by employing one a realtor. (Thank you, Gregory Young. I am So Glad I no longer have a job like yours. Besides, you’re better at it than I was.) And, just in case, I’ll live in a mostly empty house that lacks for little except for some art. Deciding what fits into the tiny house, well, that will definitely be a longer exercise. Stay tuned.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Tiny House Choices

Posted on April 5, 2024 by Tom Trimbath

So, that’s been interesting. They accepted my offer on the tiny house (390 square feet, so you argue among yourselves about what’s truly tiny). It is contingent on many things, as usual for buying a house, which means key in hand and foot in the door hanging my hats is weeks away. But already, every day is filled with insights into how I live, how I can live, and what doesn’t get to be part of the new era. I really need to start carrying a tape measure around.

Does my couch, which is my bed, fit? It should. My tiny dining room table probably isn’t tiny enough, even if I drop it leaves. Will my bicycle fit under that awning or in that storage shed? Maybe, but wind will still carry rain into it. How big or small does that washer/dryer combo get to be, have to be to fit into that cubby?

I don’t have many clothes (#MassiveUnderstatement) until I realized how much closet space I need for a parka, heavy ski jacket, plus hiking gear, and bicycling gear, and grubbies for gardening. I plan on renting another storage unit. Will that be where my weekend wear lives?

My business papers will probably live there, too. So will my historical documents like old manuscripts, photos, book inventory, presentation materials, archival financial papers that I keep ‘just in case’.

One necessity of selling a house is leaving it when potential buyers want to see it. It’s April. Going for a walk in August can mean pausing at the beach until they leave. In April – it became an excuse to go food shopping because the Sun was hidden by the planet and the island was closed, except for a supermarket.

Walk through a supermarket and marvel at the choices, but how much storage room will I have? I’m single, so there isn’t much of a need, but I enjoy cooking and wonder what my pantry will be able to hold. Maybe many more and smaller trips to the market that isn’t ‘super’ but is much nicer. (Port Townsends’ Coop market is well-known for good reason.)

Pardon me. I have to sign a document accepting an offer on my house.

Authentisign done. We are now ‘mutual’, a real estate term that I felt should be wordsmithed but that’s a small fight requiring a large effort for no real benefit, except alleviating some confusion among inexperienced and normal homebuyers. Making real estate more attuned to non-brokers and non-lawyers is a gargantuan task largely ignored despite it involving most peoples’ largest transactions of their lives. But I digress.

A drink will celebrate the event after I’ve written this post. There’s an example of personal priorities: words over drinks.

And priorities bring this post back to the core of the choices I’ve confronted. Clearing, cleaning, and decluttering an 868-square-foot house down to fit into a 390 square-foot house (plus a storage unit or two) is teaching me about what I care about. That has a value I wouldn’t uncover otherwise.

This is an old story, but it becomes real rather than abstract when boxes that have only been peeked into in almost twenty years are handled, literally. One box for hometown stuff. One for family heirlooms and trinkets. One from college, including my Masters and its supporting material. One from Boeing. 747, 737, 767, a Chinese prop plane, R&D, High Speed Commercial Transport, Second Generation Space Shuttle, Reusable Launch Vehicle, a satellite Internet service set up – not Boeing material, but mementos of posters, pins, customer photos, etc. One for each of the books I’ve written (eight, so far). An odd-shaped and heavy box of photo prints that were exhibited in galleries. And realizing I saved photos before I considered myself a photographer as boxes of prints and slides hold early hand-developed black-and-whites from high school, color slide from college, and more and more.

And if you skipped over most of that paragraph you get an idea of dozens of boxes of history that have value, but that don’t have to be readily accessible every day. Storage unit!

A couple of days ago, I was in the new house for its inspection. Inspection of a tiny house? The square footage may not be much, but the number of appliances is nearly the same. And everything has to work because there are no spares. No spare bathroom to use if the other one leaks. No second fridge in the basement or carport.

That evening, I walked back into my big house and saw how much space it had that I never used – and that was only in 868 square feet. A neighbor and friend reiterated something I’ve known for a long time; people are usually only using a few square feet right around them, and that may only be for a few places in the house. Sleeping takes up the most space, but standing and sitting are much more vertical and have smaller footprints. If you’re living through your laptop or phone, you may not need much. You may be a minimalist without knowing it. That didn’t apply to kids who ran around a lot, but sitting is more common for them, too.

Wander through a hardware, housewares, and furniture store and realize how little of it is necessary. Now, start packing a house and handle a lot that isn’t necessary. Why am I handling all of this un-necessary stuff? That conversation becomes a self-examination of life, how it’s been lived, how it’s going to be lived, and how goals and assumptions change.

I mentioned owning a house, renting a storage unit, am probably going to rent another one, and then start fitting it all in and around a tiny house. My situation isn’t normal. (Duh. Who is normal?) My big house is on an island. My tiny house is on the neighboring peninsula. The two houses are only 22 miles apart, but water gets in the way. Driving to the ferry, waiting for it, riding across, and driving to the other place takes 52 miles and can take 2.5 hours. The storage units are staging areas like a suburban version of mountaineering caches.

For now, commuting and storing are expensive, but they are temporary. Smaller houses are cheaper, and have lower monthly expenses. I’ll get to that after I actually move and pay bills.

In the meantime, all of this work could seem like it has no direct benefit, but it does. I am much more aware of my life choices, goals, constraints, and freedoms – which, of course, will lead to yet another post. For now, though, there’s a drink to mix and sip, laundry to fold, and laundry to sort into stuff I always need (societal norms, etc.), sometimes need (dancing, hiking, bicycling, skiing), no longer need (a suit jacket for a forty-year-old me?), etc. And grubbies, of course, because moving is messy. Gotta remember to put a tape measure and a utility knife in those pockets.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

A Tiny Experiment

Posted on April 2, 2024 by Tom Trimbath

Pardon the slight delay in my usual weekly posting schedule. Why? Keep reading.

Am I actually doing this? Yes. I guess I am. I am buying a tiny house to live in. This might sound like an experiment, and it is, but it is also a choice made for good, and maybe not-so-obvious reasons. But hey, why be normal?

Regular readers have probably already read between the lines that I might have to move. Have to? Decided to. If my finances don’t improve, I’d have to sell my house within about a year or two. That assumes nothing breaks in the meantime. I actually think my personal finances will improve, but there are no guarantees. Betting on hope is not a strategy, and may not even be defineable as a tactic. As Sun Tzu is said to have said, “Only move when it is to your advantage. Then, move.” (Paraphrased, variously translated, with a possibly fictional author – but a good idea anyway.)

My house, my home since 2007, is considered small by many. 868 square feet.

Pardon. Paperwork just electronically arrived.

Read. Read. Read. Oops. Call broker. Fix. Wait. Type in the meantime.

868 square feet. My smallest house ever. My favorite house that has been my favorite home. Easiest to clean. Easiest to maintain. So big that I left one room empty as a gym. And still big enough to lose my cell phone in, and find it by calling it from my landline.

And yet, finding time to treat it with proper respect and spend time giving my business and writing proper respect means that – well – there’s an entire set of windows I rarely clean.

Worrying about every little thing is partly my engineering heritage. It is also unhealthy when layered on my challenges from the last 14 years. (Read this blog for details, and possibly Too Much Information.) My treatment of my anxieties is improving, and may improve even more by literally distancing myself from some.

One anxiety that I can dramatically reduce is debt and monthly expenses. No debt. Ah. That sounds nice. See my post (Move From Whidbey Over 1700) for some background. Smaller house. Smaller bills. Smaller worries. If I was buying the tiny for cash, that would be best. Unfortunately, I have to sell my home to produce the cash to pay for the tiny. Contingent offers happen. But, will they accept it?

Ah, the revised paperwork arrives.

And, I’ve signed the paperwork, electronically (on forms that are vertical because they are designed to be printed, but must be read on horizontal computer screens that flip past the pages as signatures are made.) My offer is submitted.

I hope we filled out the forms right.

Drumroll for an emotional ride between now and either closing or more negotiations.

But in the meantime, I type because it is better than filling the waiting with wondering.

As I mentioned, my previous posts can prove that I’ve been considering a move for over a year. That’s not new. Where I live is my home, but I almost lost it about a decade ago. Before that I bought and sold a few of my residences over the decades. For a few years I was a realtor and helped dozens buy and sell theirs. A home is wonderful, but I recognize that sometimes it is time to move to another one.

I also frequently quipped that “every house is for sale, but deciding on the right price is the main question.” I actually thought of asking the For Sale sign installer to leave the post up just in case I wanted to sell quickly. Just kidding, but also somewhat serious. Months ago, I received three unsolicited offers for my home, all in one day. One was a robocall. One was a conventional cold call. One was a neighbor who knocked on the door and wanted to tour the house because she wanted to buy it. Maybe the universe put up a For Sale sign and didn’t tell me.

As I’ve shopped for houses, I became more aware of how much I own a home, not just a house. Seeing others made me appreciate what I had and still have. Nothing is perfect, but the style is just about right, the view is great even though I complain about the power lines, my neighbors are in that small crowd of the best I’ve lived beside. Whidbey is nice enough that I produced a ten-year photo essay of it. Island culture is unlike The Big City, somewhat like a rural small town, and a diverse mix of people who have similar attitudes about passion and living a lifestyle that may not find a home otherwise.

But anxieties, an increased cost of living, and other friends moving off the island suggest change will be a good thing.

If they accept my offer, which relies on finding enough cash, which requires some life choices or winning a cashpot or jackpot, and can rely on someone possibly buying my home to turn into their house under mutually agreeable conditions.

If. If. If.

So, some short-term anxieties to retire some long-term anxieties.

As you can tell, I’ve been typing this post as papers and conversations are electronically being passed around. Why wait for the end before chronicling the story? Here’s where my head has been.

I alluded to the temporary nature of living in any house/home. A tiny house won’t change that. It is easier to try something for two years when young, but doing so at 65 is doable, too. While shopping, I’ve found several possibilities, but making them work financially and physically currently was amping my anxieties. I still have a goal of a more sustainable situation. This tiny house doesn’t meet all of those criteria, but it meets enough of them to encourage me to take this intermediate step from which I can stabilize my finances, critically evaluate what I want and need (and dream), get to know a new area by spending time there, and then make that big move.

Nothing is permanent. Everything is temporary. And there are times when it is good to experiment.

I pause as they consider replying and I sleep.

Next day.

Patience, lad.

Dinner. Dishes. And a document to sign. Skip the details. We are now ‘mutual’ which means, assuming some unresolved details resolve well enough, I will own a tiny home.

That night.

So much to celebrate and so many requirements to meet that migraines arrive. Good news isn’t always stress-free, at least temporarily.

Next day.

One detail is about as big as most life events get: selling my home.

Start the final cleaning and clearing prior to the public walking through my house. Make it look pretty, and put the precious things away. Oh yeah, and cook days worth of meals because showings may make cooking impractical. Details. Details.

Continue eating my way through my pantry. The more I eat, the less there is to pack and move, and the less money and time I spend because this is looking like a very busy time.

Selling my home – but not telling anyone yet because it may not be proper to advertise a house is for sale before it is officially on the market with a sign in the yard.

Patience, lad. Wait for Easter and a day or two, which is not eaten up by eating chocolate Easter bunnies, but is eaten up by cleaning, decluttering, packing the house, oh yeah, and signing lots of listing documents.

And taking an evening off because the process of selling can eat up a person.

Next day.

Everything signed? Neighbors are guessing – and guessing as well as many realtors.

Last runs to recycle and trash.

Oh, and by the way, continue with normal life including filing taxes. (Another story for later.) And producing another manuscript to upload for a semi-secret book project. Now, to find the time for publishing that, too.

Another day? Well, yes, because things don’t happen at midnight. They can happen at noon, or dawn, or dusk, but preferrable before COB, Close Of Business.

And then writing and this blog post.

But every minute of every chore becomes a reflection on how to live a life. Out of debt with cash in hand? Shopping changes. A small flat lot? Mowing just got easier, and does that mean using a push reel mower instead of something with gas or electricity? Making dinner becomes an exercise in adjusting meal planning and storage. No room inside for a chest freezer, so reduce, or shop, or dine out more? What office supplies and records go into storage, and where will I work? Maybe some time in-town, in a library, maybe at a co-works? Every minute, a new self-examination that is usually glossed over daily through habits. Maybe moving is good simply to force a re-evaluation of a life and an opportunity to create new habits.

My Tiny Experiment begins as a new way to live, but also a new blog so my personal finance blog doesn’t get distracted, and my tiny experiment can be properly chronicled. Here we go.

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/M1640056875

PS Want to be my neighbor in Port Townsend? The new tiny house next door just listed too.

https://www.redfin.com/WA/Port-Townsend/6062-Washington-20-98368/unit-8/home/175726990

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

FREY – One Company One Story

Posted on March 22, 2024 by Tom Trimbath

Welcome to another story and another video in my One Company One Story series.

This time, Freyr (FREY).

Here comes the amateur legalese.

I began investing in companies and their stocks in the late 70s, but am Not a certified investment professional.

My style and history of investing is described in Dream. Invest. Live., a book I wrote by request – which came out as the Great Recession (the Second Great Depression) began. Don’t underestimate luck. Oops. https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0035XVXAA

My personal finance blog (a blog about my finances) is: https://trimbathcreative.net/

I am Not an investment professional. This is Not financial advice. 

By request –

Pardon some repetition but…

Solid power? Why does that matter? Check the previous month’s post about SolidPower.

How about semi-solid power?

Freyr Battery’s “…mission is to accelerate the decarbonization of global energy and transportation systems by producing clean, cost-competitive batteries.” Freyr is still using Lithium-Ion batteries, but better (hopefully). 

Within high-tech industries, it can be easy to continually chase “The Next Big Thing”, but that also can postpone introductions to efficiencies that are available much sooner. As I understand it, Freyr is partnered with a firm that has found a new way of generating Lithium-Ion batteries, and to do so in a way that is simpler, solvent-free, and uses less materials. Cleaner, quicker, and easier to recycle. From the environmental aspect it takes less energy and looks like it creates less waste. From the business side, quicker and simpler are usually better. Time is money and complexity can mean higher costs.

From their web site I get the impression that they are focused on large scale operations like energy storage systems and commercial vehicles. They also mention electric cars (vehicles). It would be odd if they didn’t.

Electric vehicles may be the easiest things to see, but renewables like wind and solar benefit from energy storage during their slack times. Cars are noticeable, but trucks can produce more CO2 because they’re working hard. A car is usually carrying one passenger for relatively short trips. Trucks pull tens of thousands of pounds for hundreds or thousands of miles. Freyr helps both ends of the energy chain: production and consumption.

Want to know more? I do too. Unfortunately, Freyr’s website is almost exclusively words and pictures, but no catchy data. Their partner, 24M Technologies, may have more data, but if I’m going to dive in that far I’ll devote a video to them. (Assuming they are publicly traded.) I suspect the lack of data was a marketing and messaging choice, not one of lacking technical content. I make assumptions.

From the stock market side (which does have data), the company is just under a quarter-million dollar market cap, which is within the size I like. Google Finance is only showing data back to July 2021, when FREY was trading at ~$10. As I type this (March 22, 2024), the stock is ~$1.50. That’s a drop. Net income is negative, but that’s common with new companies and startups. Much of the stock drop has been since November 2022. The price seems to have stabilized since December 2023. A quick glance at social media describes a downturn within the sector, not something specific to FREY. Inconclusive.

Google Finance

Regular viewers and readers may know that I am intrigued by the technology and the sector. Making Lithium-Ion safer, cheaper, and more efficient is good and a natural progression for a technology and industry. I admit to reluctance about Lithium-Ion batteries because competing technologies may soon eclipse them. The new technologies are even more speculative, but they may also be necessary to reach climate goals. It is one reason I don’t have an electric car (but then there’s the money, and reliability in some of the environments I encounter. Check the books I’ve written about twelve-month travel in Washington State’s wilderness. https://www.amazon.com/stores/T.-E.-Trimbath/author/B0035XVXAA)

I don’t know what’s going to happen; but, I hope they survive and thrive. I’ll be watching.

The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUTJAlxPIW4

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

LTBH And Less Waiting

Posted on March 15, 2024 by Tom Trimbath

So that happened. More correctly; so, that finally happened.
“Geron (GERN) Gets ODAC Votes for Blood Disorder Drug”

Disclosure up front. I own shares of GERN. I’ve owned shares of GERN since 1999. I am a fan of LTBH, Long Term Buy and Hold. (Details in my book, Dream. Invest. Live.)

When I bought the stock, I thought Long Term referred to years. Today, I read quotes in online forums where someone proclaims themself a Long because they held a stock for months. The concept of decades doesn’t seem possible to someone who has only been investing for a few years. After about 25 years, Geron (GERN) finally received some significant, positive, but not-yet-quantifiable news – except in its stock price. Within a few minutes of Thursday’s announcement after hours, the stock was up about 80%. Success?

Google Finance

(For those unfamiliar with Geron, aka GERN, I’ve been writing about the company for over a decade. There are links below to help summarize my opinion of the company and its technology.)

Step one: Celebrate the good news. Even for people who aren’t invested in the stock, biotechs can announce progress in treating ailments and injuries. That’s worth celebrating, especially for patients needing treatment. For people who are invested in the stock, there’s usually that price appreciation to celebrate, too.

Step two: Breathe, relax, repeat. After the emotional high, remember this is an investment which can benefit from some rational thought, and possibly responsible actions.

Step three: Decide what this really means in the short term and the long term.

Okay. I raised a toast last night, so step one is complete. I watched the stock during the regular trading hours, which let my rational side kick in.

In the short term:
This is great. I’m not going to complain about an almost doubling within a day. This is better than normal (#massiveunderstatement), but GERN has seen spikes of 140% before. I’ve experienced other stocks rise 240% in a day, and know of one that hit 640% in a day. And even that understates the nature of the rise. News items can be discrete events where the rise happens in minutes. The rest of the day may be simply details as the market collectively decides what the news is really worth.
Just look at that stock chart.

Until a small company reaches such a milestone, it is difficult to estimate the company, and therefore the stock’s, value. That shifts the points on that line on the chart. Rational estimates move them one way. Market sentiment moves them, too. Some will buy or sell based on market potential, optimism, and pessimism. Some trade just to trade, ignoring the goods or services provided by the company. They just watch numbers go up and down, then they (mathematically) guess where they are going next.

In the longer term (looking forward):
What’s the potential for the company? How large is the market? What’s the competition? How much is it needed? The calculations get more complex and are more likely to be grounded in analyses than gossip. Will this make this company viable and sustainable, and hopefully, profitable?

And then here comes the multiplier. If the treatment works for this ailment, will it work for others? If so, how far can it go? That can take longer to estimate.

In the long term (looking backward):
For where the stock is now, compared to when the stockholder bought it, has the investment had a good enough Return On Investment? What’s the stock price for personal breakeven? What are the personal long-term goals?

The stock has already hit the cocktail party criteria. It is easy to brag about holding a stock that went up 90% in a day. Spread the cheer. Cheers!

But, did it make sense to have bought it then? If so, great. If not, how much more does it need to go to reach that Return On Investment target, and what are the chances it will get there or higher?

In the present:
Geron has issued so many shares of GERN that the power of those initial shares is greatly diminished. I’ve bought several times, so each has its own ROI targets; but, I don’t worry those details. A stock has this value now. Except for taxes, it doesn’t matter when it was bought. What are the likely value and limits that the stock will have in the next few months or years? The next few days and weeks will likely be chaos. What’s the longer picture?

In the near future:
The celebrations and such are anticipatory. As I understand it, this was the decision of an Advisory panel. Any full FDA approval isn’t expected for months, and is not guaranteed. Risk remains. Risk also remains after a treatment gets approval, but that’s normal biotech business.

History:
A lot of the near-term chaos will be fresh investors and long-term lurkers deciding to buy in now. They’re playing the strategy of purposely missing the first dramatic rise because they’ve used their money somewhere else in the meantime. I’m bad at guessing when that first dramatic rise rises, so I buy in early. My style is more relaxed and patient. For the last 25 years, Geron has had opportunities to announce breakthroughs, and I didn’t want to miss them. Unfortunately, the company sold off many of the technologies so it could survive. It looks like it has.

LTBH is Long Term Buy and Hold, but is not Hold For Infinity. To me, stocks are there to enable a life. If GERN can be sold at a high enough price, I may do so to get out of debt, enable a nicer lifestyle, do some pilanthropy, or even invest in something else.

And history echoes.
I own stock in a company pursuing one of Geron’s spinoff technologies. That stock, LTCX, was languishing as a startup can, until about noon the day after Geron’s announcement. Suddenly, the stock started moving almost as if someone made the connection. It ended up 11%. That’s pretty good too.

Google Finance

Now, the waiting game.
LTBH is defined by patience. Patience holding. A celebration. Now, patience waiting for FDA approval. Then, a few more milestones later, begin treating people, making money, and seeing it meets or exceeds or fails expectations. It ain’t over, and looks more likely to go on for a long time, which should also be true of the patients.

A few links

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment