• 
• See all for Zacks.com
• View Print Version

Berkshire Hathaway held its annual meeting in Omaha last weekend so Warren Buffett has been in the news the last several days.

Buffett's father was a stockbroker and Buffett worked at his father's brokerage writing stock prices on the blackboard as a child. He showed interest in trading and his father let him buy his first stock at age 11. He bought 6 shares of Cities Services for $38 which he sold not long afterwards for $40 a share. He made money on his first trade.

The stock, however, then surged to $200 a share, which Buffett said later, taught him the value of patience.

Buying My First Stock

Buffett's early start to stock investing got some of us here at Zacks talking about when we bought our first stock.

I bought my first stock in the 1980s when I was around 14. I had been reading the Chicago Tribune's business section and watching the stock tables (yes- this was obviously well before the Internet.)

I told my dad I wanted to use some of my savings to buy a stock.

I chose Eastern Airlines. I don't remember why I picked Eastern Airlines (no longer in existence) out of all the stocks in the universe as I had only flown once in my life by that time and it was NOT on Eastern Airlines. I otherwise knew nothing about airlines.

An airline stock!

What was I thinking?

I bought it through my father's broker at Paine Webber. The trade cost me $50 and I had to buy 100 shares because they traded in lots of 100 back then.

I actually did make money off the trade but it was only through luck. Eastern got bought out for more than I paid not too long afterward my purchase.

My father remarked: "this doesn't happen every time you buy a stock, you know. You got lucky."

Truer words were never spoken.

How old were you when you bought your first stock?

What made that stock so special you had to buy it?

Related Stocks Articles

• 
  Video Game Sales Plunge in April - Analyst Blog
  5/24/2013 05:26 PM
• 
  Promising Data on ONCY's Reolysin - Analyst Blog
  5/24/2013 05:26 PM
• 
  How to Beat THIS Market - Weekend Wisdom
  5/24/2013 05:26 PM