June 13, 2025
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Talking Their Own Book
So one of the weirder hobbies I've taken up over the last decade has been stock trading. I've become a rabid reader of stock articles, to the point that I was reading them while driving (not my wisest move!). It's been helpful to understand business and the economy, and every so often I make money instead of losing money (yay).
One unfortunate thing I recognized was that if people have invested in a stock, they will overlook any offense a company creates. The company may have made its money by tricking senior citizens into bad investments or turning widows into butter, yes. But somehow, the owners of that stock will comment that we shouldn't judge the company by moral standards, and after all, those widows were annoying. Buttered toast, anyone?
This behavior has the fun nickname of "Talking one's book:" that is, one's book of stock certificates. It's the idea that one has a book of stock certificates and is talking it up whenever one can to raise the value of said stocks.
For some reason, seeing these commenters and writers promote their stock by any excuse necessary was educational for me. I used to get upset about bias in reporting and commentary. But now, I realize that most of the time, it's because that person is already invested in their lie. It's not a personality defect per se, many of those people aren't even aware of their bias. It's the investment they already made that is doing the talking, and thus they are in slavery to their book without even realizing it.
And in stock trading, you can always sell your stock and get out of that business. Ask me how much money I've lost from selling my investments in Palantir, or avoiding Amazon and Tesla stock. But in the real world, we struggle so much to sell bad stocks, don't we?
Comments (2)
One of my investment funds is the Social Values Choice Equity Fund.The Fund generally does not invest in companies that derive more than 10% of their revenue from gambling or from the manufacture, sale or distribution of alcoholic beverages, tobacco-related products, adult entertainment, weapons, or the management or operation of prison facilities. I am not trying to make a statement by having 17% of my funds invested there. For me, I just thought I should invest in a fund that doesn't invest in companies that potentially bring harm. That said, I am not anti-gun or alcohol, just the abuse of them.
That's a good point, there are a lot of funds out there now that will let you avoid immoral companies. I should consider such an option, they are easy enough to find.