6/23/17 Finally Sold My Stock After Seventeen Years?

    I have been working here at the same place for over twenty years.  When I was young and full of testosterone and adrenaline, I signed up for the stock purchase plan.  This was the place to be I thought.  An underdog in an exciting industry, the David to Intel's Goliath.  We were going to take that sumbitch down with our newest weapon, the Athlon.  Back in the late 90's things were great here, exciting even.  I was hired in a time where it seemed like every month a new batch of recruits was brought in to fortify and battle Intel.  It looked and sounded like it was going to happen.
    As a reward for working with the Little Engine That Could, we could purchase stock at a discount.  They would take a certain percentage of our check and first they would match that percentage and then give us a discount.  For a fleeting second this stock actually went as high as $99 dollars a share, I had almost $18,000 worth of cheap money.  But as is the story of my life, I got greedy and refused to sell when I should have, we lost a tremendous battle with Intel and the stock price never recovered.  We would mount little battles and even attempted to attack in the server market which was Intel's stronghold.  We did make inroads, but we just never had enough to hurt them and make them back off.  Eventually, AMD was broken into two companies to survive, the microprocessors went to Germany since it was the newest FAB and we kept the Flash market, which we were sold to Spansion.
    For years those stocks in paper form stayed in my closet and in my underwear drawer.  I would look at them now and again and the value seemed stuck in the $1-$2 range.  I considered selling, if for maybe $500, but I was never that desperate.  About two-three months ago somebody mentioned if I had looked at AMD recently, I said "why?  It's been a piece of shit for about ten years."  They told me, "it's finally making some moves."  Well shit, the little mofo is finally worth something again.
    It has just about cannibalized itself completely, if it was a human, it would be down to a brain in a jar.  It sold all other divisions, it sold its fabs and pays other companies to produce its chips.  It is down to a design firm which still makes a decent microprocessor, whatever the magic is, if we know anything, it is that it won't last.
    I stopped dreaming and pulled the sell tag on it.  I am walking away with a few thousand bucks, enough to pay off three credit cards that I love shopping at, so we'll see how long I can go without charging stuff.  I always said that the stock money would buy my next boat, and maybe it won't but at least it can help me float for a little while longer.