Yea, but it wasn't like when I bought a few hundred shares of a company called 'InVision' back in 2000 for about 4 bucks a share. They made airport baggage scanners but the reason I bought them was because their R&D lab down in San Diego was working on a mine detector for the Army that would detect plastic mines. It used an MRI-like technology to detect the atomic signature of the nitrogen-based explosive materials (I worked with mines when I was in the Corp of Engineers and knew the problems caused when the world's militaries switched from metal to plastic mine casings).
Anyway, near the end of August 2001, the shares had dropped to less than $2 and I almost bought more (I kick myself every day for not 'selling the farm' to buy those shares). Anyway, you can imagine what happened when 9/11 attacks took place. When the stock exchanges reopened, shares of 'InVision' had jumped to $18 and I never bought any more. I he'd on to them for a couple of years and finally sold at about $40. I should have waited a few months as InVIsion was acquired by GE for nearly $50/share.
Of course I then took my profits and invested half in a start-up working on an automatic safety syringe (it's amazing the number of needle-stick injuries that occur each year in America in hospitals and medical offices) and half in a company that did asbestos removal and flood and hurricane cleanup of commercial and industrial sites. Within 5 years, they both went bankrupt. Oh well, the money I put in that brokerage account was money that my wife had inherited and even if we lost it all, it wouldn't make much difference. I called it my 'sand box' where I could 'play' and no one could get hurt too badly. We closed that account a few years ago and ended up with only about a $1,000 more than what we had started with. Granted, we could have put it in money markets or CD's but this way we at least had a little fun gambling in the markets. That way we were never tempted to risk out real retirement accounts.
http://articles.latimes.com/2004/mar/16/business/fi-invision16
OCU
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