The riskiest of investing

When I was 16, my Mom gave me $100, and set up a brokerage account. She told me to pick one or two companies to buy a share of stock in. After some research, one of the companies I chose was a little-known, but scrappy computer company, the CEO of which wasn't afraid to go up against the big guys.

Fast forward thirteen years. After some research, I invest a pittance in a small start-up movie making company. The company had just kicked some major butt in their first film (which used 100% computer animation), had some other heavy hitters on the management team, and had just signed a 10-year contract with Disney. I thought the long term prospects were good, and the CEO wasn't afraid to go up against the big guys.

That purchase was 10 years ago, and for reasons I'll go in a moment, we have let the stock sit for all that time. We literally FORGOT WE HAD IT.

The name of the computer company was Apple Computer, the CEO: Steve Jobs. The name of the movie company: Pixar, the CEO: you guessed it.

We just realized this past weekend that we have A YEAR'S SALARY in our 401K (when we thought we had practically nothing). God is good.

===== Details of why we forgot, for those who care ======

Back in 1997, I decided that just buying and selling stock wasn't risky enough for me - I wanted to do options trading. However, the brokerage firm (Cheap-Trade) that held the $1,000 worth of Pixar wouldn't allow me to do options trading (because it is so risky, and this was a self-directed 401K). So, I transferred everything except for the shares of Pixar from Cheap-Trade into Loyalty (a more expensive firm, that allowed the riskiest of investing - even in retirement accounts, like mine).

Anyway, after the transfer (in about 1998 or so), I COMPLETELY IGNORED any communication from Cheap-Trade (originally thinking it was only $1,000 and I would eventually close it out, and then FORGETTING ENTIRELY that I owned anything). I had switched from paper to electronic statements, so we didn't get anything much from C-Trade at home, and the e-mail statements only had a link to their website on it (which I never went to).

As you know, I recently changed my e-mail address (since cash has been getting a bit tight, and the new e-mail is free). Well, C-Trade sends me an unusual letter via snail-mail which I happen to open for some reason (we often throw away mail unopened if we don't think there will be anything interesting in it). It says that my e-mail is no longer working, and to please logon to their web site and fix it. When I do, viola - HAPPY DAYS!

Postscript: The most observant among you may notice a new label for this post: Investing. I'm thinking that this (re)discovery might be a sign that I should get back into investing. I had GREAT luck when I did it (I stopped cold turkey about 5 years ago).

My first tip (with apologies to Mark Twain): "Buy land. They've stopped making it." (and it's quite the buyers market at the moment, I hear!).