This post The Rich Life Part II: Confessions of a sixth-grade stock picker appeared first on Daily Reckoning.
When your name is Nilus Lawrence Mattive III, people automatically expect you to have a silver spoon in your mouth.
But I never did. Nobody in my family ever started a company, patented an invention, or wrote a movie script.
My odd first name was the ONLY thing handed down from generation to generation in my family. No inheritances or trust funds to speak of here.
As I explained in Part I, I was just a lower-middle-class sixth grader living in northeastern Pennsylvania.
My dad was the first person to go to college on either side of the family. He worked in the human resources department at a state mental health facility. He also had a second gig at the YMCA. And my mom? After spending a few years taking care of me, she got a part-time job at a small credit union.
My parents’ investments were limited to passbook savings accounts and maybe a CD or two.
That’s why they were so surprised when I said I wanted to start investing in stocks on my own.
Sure, I had always been interested in money – coin collecting, piling up cash in my dresser drawer, even looking at stock market quotes in our local newspaper.
But this was a whole new deal!
Luckily, my parents encouraged me. They allowed me to take several hundred dollars from my savings and put it into the market.
I searched under “stock broker” in the yellow pages, and made a few phone calls. When I found one who took me seriously, my dad helped me set up an account.
That was around 1987. The movie Wall Street had just come out. I was watching shows like “Family Ties,” where the young Alex Keaton character was carrying his briefcase to school and talking about investing in blue chips. Meanwhile, I picked up a personal computer from my local Sears, an antique by today’s standards.
I knew what I wanted to do…
I decided to buy five shares of IBM.
I didn’t make a killing but it was great experience. I also ended up with some Disney stock that performed nicely.
Later, in high school, I started putting more money into the market.
And that’s when I learned my first real lesson.
Up to that point, my broker had merely followed the instructions I gave him.
But then he told me he had a great investment I should consider – a small mining company his research department said was ready to soar.
As I quickly discovered, it’s possible to have a high IQ and still be a complete idiot…
That trade was a disaster. I lost my shirt.
I also learned that “boring” stocks like IBM and Disney could outperform smaller, more exciting plays.
Of course, that didn’t prevent me from some spectacular wins as the ensuing …read more
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The post The Rich Life Part II: Confessions of a sixth-grade stock picker appeared first on Junior Mining Analyst.