My First Investment

When I was 10 years old, I made my first investment. I didn’t know it at the time. Apparently I had $10,000 kicking around that my grandmother had put in my account. My uncle who owned a seat on the NY Stock exchange was an aggressive trader and a very wealthy man. He lived on 5th Avenue next to the Italian consulate overlooking Central Park. It was as good an address as you could possibly have in the financial center of the world. He would actively trade all day long. He would trade stocks in Asia after dinner, and he would get up early in the morning and catch the end of the trading day in Hong Kong. He had a 4 hour break before the opening bell on Wall Street. He was the expert when it came to investing. So my mother asked his advice when it came to making the first investment for her 10 year old son. 

My uncle suggest that we buy two mining companies that traded on the Vancouver Stock exchange. Mountain State Resources Exploration and another small cap mining company. I’ve long since even forgotten the name of the company. 

My uncle said that both companies had made some solid discoveries in the world of mining. The two companies were expected to merge. As a result, he predicted that the value of both companies would multiply. 

Well, you might have guessed it by now, the merger never happened. Both companies went broke, and my $10,000 evaporated. I was 10 years old and my life savings to that point in time evaporated. But, none of this is the reason I’m telling you this story. 

There were several powerful lessons in that story. Do I wish I still had those $10,000? Of course. Had I invested them myself, I expect that I would have multiplied them many times over. What you get when you don’t get what you want is an education. So all I have to show for those $10,000 is an education. 

So what was the lesson?

Listen to find out.