Thank you.
I started investing with the view of it as a more interesting way to save money without spending it. Dad provided guidance and direction having me open US and Canadian cash trading accounts and said to me 'this is yours', we were looking at the Canadian account which was all I was interested in at first. I believe an RRSP account was opened at the same time that I did get some use though most of my activity was in the cash account.
I made my first trade on my birthday in 1998 buying 100 shares of Winspear Resources for $404 plus a $29 commission, dad taught me how to track my gains and losses for tax purposes using a spreadsheet that I still use.
Dad and I did talk a little about reading company financial statements, I remember him saying I wanted to see 'Retained Earnings' rising.
I do remember the period when Amazon and the internet stocks declined even though I only had about $3000 dollars at that time. I was mostly trading junior mining and oil and gas companies in those early years but I do remember I had some shares in a small company named UBS Broadband. In those early years dividends were not a consideration for me. I was trying for capital gains, using the small companies so I could buy board lots, and mostly focusing on the resource companies that each had their own story. I did experience a few companies that went to zero and I still keep a couple of those in my accounts as a reminder. The biggest loss I have had was on a oil and gas services company that went zero, the biggest gain I have had was with a little mining company named Century Mining that got bought.
I do not believe I bought that mining company in the hopes it would get bought out. I believe the entire trade involved four buys, a year and a half from first buy to sell. I believe the first buy was at $0.015, another at $0.05, and then maybe $0.15 and $0.20. They did have a mine though I do not remember if they were actually in operation, they probably had some kind of issue that allowed me to get that initial entry buy. I think the story was they wanted to put the mine back into production and then got a buyout offer by a Russian billionaire, there was a couple of days with lots of abnormally high volume and I took the opportunity to sell my shares in the low $0.60 range.
The measurement of a company's Market Cap was not (and still isn't) a measurement I used, I was studying company stories trying to determine if it was a good time to buy. The rise in the price of gold during those years helped, I remember dad and I watching the price of gold and getting excited as it neared and went up above $300. At some point I noticed the amount of talk about a company increase when companies did financings to do something and moreso if the company the something was to start new production. There were a few times I tripled my money though I usually did not hold on that long, usually I sold well before I double. One triple I do remember was Western Copper, there was a lot of talk about it and when I looked at the chart I saw a very well formed ascending triangle. I bought at about $1.50 and it did indeed move up nicely and I sold at about $7.00. It continued to move up above $30 which did not bother me, I was happy my trade worked as well as it did.
During those years I did open an account with a full service broker for a few years to partipate in company financings. I did have to lie on the depression era regulation financing forms regarding asset level and pretend I felt like a millionaire. I had the thinking my money was going directly to little companies and I liked that. Few of those companies were producing companies, most were mining exploration and one was generative exploration. There was a couple good years with that account, eventually I closed the account with I believe a positive net result.
When the Halloween announcement was made changing the rules for income trusts in Canada I got more interested in my own dividend cashflow. I had been reading the Rich Dad Poor Dad books about that time and very much liked The Cashflow Quadrant. I have the view that my present life situation still requires a lot of focus on dividends. I look at a company's debt, earnings, cashflow, and dividend a lot. I do still look at shareholders equity and retained earnings though to me it appears the market does not use it, so I use it myself as part of a measurement of safety against debt.
Bitcoin's concept of a 'limited supply' has and does intrigue me. I have in the past obtained share certificates though that was a number of years ago. |
