Always Get Equity - 2

New York Times December 3, 2000

INVESTING: DIARY; 'Buy and Forget' Pays Off Big
By Julie Flaherty

Know that nice feeling you get when you find a forgotten $20 bill in the pocket of an old coat? Last week, a Massachusetts man had that feeling -- 200,000 times over.

The man, a 62-year-old salesman who wants to keep his identity under wraps, recently found that some stock he thought he had sold long ago had been quietly gaining value for 13 years. A week ago, it was worth about $4 million.


The investor said he bought 3,000 shares of EMC, the data storage company, on a tip from his cousin in 1987, but soon sold 2,000 of them to pay for his children's college tuition. He forgot about the remaining 1,000 until the state's Abandoned Property Division, noticing the inactivity, contacted him last month.

Sure enough, after spending three days in his cellar with a kerosene lamp, he found the still-sealed envelope with the stock certificates. The shares, for which he paid about $15.75 each, have split several times, making him the owner of 48,000 shares whose latest 52-week high was $104.94 ($5 037 120).

No sooner did he claim his property at the statehouse last Wednesday, though, than he saw EMC's share price slip along with the rest of the Nasdaq. ''I lost $600,000 in two days,'' he told The Boston Herald. ''But I can't find anyone to give me any sympathy.''