My very first financial option

From I was 15 to 17 I was every Christmas running my own Christmas tree business. I was standing in the center of my home village in front of the Town Hall selling Christmas trees. Trees that I had got for free from the farm of my parents, and also from a "neighbor" farm. I did not have driving license yet (you first get it at age 18 in Norway), but my father was driving the trees down for me. My younger brother was my Christmas tree business partner one year.

Some of the savings from this I invested in a bond issued by a oil company, I think I was 16. I had little idea what I was holding in my hands. Yes it was a paper bond certificate that I actually was holding in my hands that I had bought at the local village bank (I have no idea how they could let 16 year old farm boys buy such complex derivatives, nothing changes I guess). Even if I never had heard about options, never studied options I understood from the text in very small print on the back of the bond that there was some type of optionally/flexibility (it was indeed a convertible bond).

I remembered after the underlying shares had rallied a lot I was thinking a lot about if I should use the flexibility described on the back of the bond certificate to exchange my bond into shares. It was very hard to decide I remember, because if the shares felt I would no longer have the bond where I could clip off the coupons and collect cash. I very well remember there was a coupon card. At some point I decided to exchange my bond into shares I remember.

And looking at it now, I think it was close to an optimal conversion point (even if I never had heard about options or studied any option theory), especially in a market where it not was allowed to short shares. The embedded option was deep in the money. Not long after I also sold the shares.