The writer was reading a book called Buried Treasurer (Travels Through the Jewel Box) by Victoria Finlay, Sceptre 2006. The concept of the book is looking at your jewelry box and asking where do those gems come from? what are the stories? why are they considered important?

In a previous post, the author went searching for the origins of a ring she had inherited from her parents. The country where the gem came from, the gems can be found either digging in the ground (underground mining) or panning in the rivers for the jewels (ie panning for gold in California or Alaska). The more romantic version is panning in the rivers because the jewels come from somewhere in the mountains brought down by the rivers – which is where the author’s gem came from It is also part of Sinbad the Sailor stories.

To bridge to dividend paying stocks, in the above case as long as the panning operation is a small and medium sized one, it will provide returns to the operators and that is good. To sustain a larger amount of people, the underground mining has to be in full operation. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages, including different  anticipation of expected returns. When you go looking at potential companies to own, what is your expected return? having too high rules some things out, having too low leaves everything in and it is hard to make a decision.

There are always more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions