122. What a Beggar Needs
Nasruddin was walking down the street when a beggar accosted him.
“I know you,” said Nasruddin. “You like drinking coffee in the coffeehouse, don’t you?
The beggar nodded. “Yes, I do.”
“And the bathhouse? And drinking with your friends?”
The beggar kept nodding, and Nasruddin gave him a gold coin.
Nasruddin met a second beggar; he had overheard the first conversation.
“What about you?” asked Nasruddin. “The coffeehouse?”
“Never!” said the beggar.
“Bathhouse? Drinking?”
The beggar shook his head emphatically, and Nasruddin gave him a copper coin.
“I don’t understand!” complained the beggar.
“Your needs are fewer,” replied Nasruddin, smiling.
This Tale is from “Tiny Tales of Nasruddin” by Laura Gibbs. The book is licensed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. © 2019-202The2 Laura Gibbs
My failure at Wells Fargo on Monday was fortuitous. My plan was to invest the proceeds from the sale of HL (Hecla) stock in 52 week T Bills. I have held the HL shares for years and they have been on what I considered to be an irrational exuberance rise during the past couple of months.
I wrote on 12 December 2025 that I sold Covered Calls with a strike price that was about equal to where the market for the stock was at that time. The Calls expired on 9 January 2026. Prior to the expiration date I had 10 of the contracts ‘assigned’ i.e. the Call was executed. On the expiration date the remainder of the sold Calls were also executed but I did not have that information when I went to Sierra Vista on the 12th. With the one person in the office out sick I could not get an explanation for why I could not sell additional Calls using WellsTrade while I was there. It was not until the 14th that my account reflected what had happened; there is a serious delay in reporting which I now know and can deal with.
“Error is fruitful, it conditions the correct path.” — Jacques Ellul
My plan was ill conceived since the only way I could buy T Bills in my WellsTrade account was to call a trader at some traders desk. Since I can’t call it required my finding an approved Wells employee that could call on my behalf. There are not a lot of these employees available, only ONE in Sierra Vista and he was sick.
This was a wake up call and set me on the correct path which was to buy shares in OBIL, an eft that rolls 52 week T Bills. When I say rolls what I mean is the eft buys 52 week T Bills, then at the next monthly auction they sell those and buy the new 52 week Bills. The eft is always holding 52 week Bills but only holds a particular maturity for four weeks.
The plan now is I’ll buy shares of OBIL each week for the next five weeks. That will invest a portion of the HL sale proceeds. The rest will be used to buy shares of MOO, an agriculture sector eft, each week during these same five weeks. The eft share prices of both are quite stable so stretching the purchases out over the five weeks probably is of limited value but I’ll do it for the education value if nothing else.
The education so far — I don’t need a WellsFargo employee to do any calling for me!
The one and only time I made a visit inside the WellsFargo bank in SV, I muttered to myself all the way back to the car. It was just unbelievable, the service I got there.
I have not had any bad experiences with them for the usual banking services. However, their online WellsTrade brokerage service can certainly stand some improvement. If you don’t ever need to talk to someone face-to-face and if you know that the online reporting is delayed for some things maybe not so bad. A good brokerage for ‘buy and hold’.
I’ll put that in my notes, thanks