The early beginnings

I thought I should start off with a quick overview of my investing history...

I've always been a math/computer-geek guy, always have loved numbers and formulae and problem solving. I don't remember when I first got interested in the stock market, but I don't know what took so long. I don't think it was until around 1999 when my brother started telling me about all the money he was making (on paper) in cool tech stocks he was buying. Ah yes, the dot com bubble. I eventually opened an account in 2000, right when the bubble was bursting. Of course, after most stocks dropping 50% off their highs, it seemed like a perfect time to buy: how could they go any lower?! Long story short, we all know tech stocks ended up dropping about 90%, and yes, I held on for the ride down and lost most of my money.

Luckily I didn't have too much money at the time so I didn't really lose that much in hindsight, but it felt like a lot at the time. After that I just noodled around very little in stocks. I still always read financial news every day, read about stocks, was addicted to looking at charts, imagined what I'd invest in each day, but I was a little too scared to buy much.

I started thinking I wanted some good long-term investments, and in looking around, I was quite disappointed in the long-term performance of all mutual funds. I began a quest to find the best investment possible, the absolute best that was out there. I wasn't going to settle for some bland generic fund that averaged 5-7% per year. I figured there had to be something/someone out there that could consistently make huge returns long term. I searched and searched, weeding through shady products and scams, more boring funds, getting more and more depressed, until one day, I stumbled across the secret treasure chest that met and exceeded my wildest expectations -- it was almost too good to be true. It was *exactly* what I was looking for... and its name was Sprott. (to be continued)