Welcome to Sound Of Gold, my financial website where I will attempt to grasp the basics of finance and investing. My goal is to to become a successful investor who is capable of his own independent investing decisions and I hope you can join me on this journey.

My name is Daniel and I was born in Czech Republic, a little country in the middle of Europe. In 1999 I moved to Australia, right in the middle of the last property boom there. Those were the times which opened my eyes to a new world of investing and finance. Suddenly I discovered completely new way of thinking where one can become financially independent and reasonably wealthy simply by following few simple, no nonsense rules. From that time I have taken great interest in everything related to financial markets and investing and became much more aware of possible investing opportunities around me.

Those were also the days when I bought and sold my first shares (Foster’s Group, ASX: FGL) bought for around $3.30 and sold at $3.35 as I was too anxious not to lose my AU$2000 invested), took my first ever mortgage and invested in my first ever investment property (2 bedroom unit in Darwin, NT for $151,000 seems almost unbelievable already) and generally ground my teeth in the big bad investing world out there.

Since than I have never really stopped reading everything about investing I could get my hands on, slowly but surely becoming a value inclined and devoted investing “Buffetteer� (this fact will, no doubt, jump at you from my web site sooner rather than later).
The principles of value and business-like investing made always lots of sense to me and therefore those are the rules I nowadays follow every time I manage to save up reasonable amount of money to invest.

Few months ago, my wife and I quit our day jobs in Australia and relocated to Thailand, country where my better half originally comes from. It is yet to be decided how permanent our move is as settling in country such as Thailand could prove quite difficult for both of us. However, barely arriving in the country, I quickly jumped at the opportunity to get to know new, quickly emerging financial market which could present opportunities hard to come by elsewhere.

Such opportunities and market analysis are exactly the topics I will try to cover here. My own, “lay-man/self-educated investor’sâ€? analysis of various stock and real estate markets will be the main part of this web, topped up by investing nuggets from other sources. I hope that you will find the information here helpful, making you a better investor capable of making more qualified, independent investment decisions.