FAQ is an acronym for "Frequently Asked Questions". The purpose of an FAQ is usually to provide generic answers to the most frequently asked questions, so when a person comes along asking this question he or she can be sent to the FAQ to spare people the effort of typing out the same old answer all over again. Most newsgroups have an FAQ of their own.

There doesn't really seem to be a standard pronunciation for this word, being an Internet term it is more frequently typed than spoken, I say "EF AY CUE", but others say "fark", I don't suppose it matters much.

Some time in 1999, there was a discussion in aus.invest where somebody asked if there was an FAQ for our newsgroup. There wasn't one, so it was resolved that we should all pitch in a few articles and somebody should put one together. The original intention was for the FAQ to have a great many authors and to be a community effort. In the end only a couple of people submitted articles, but I collected together the articles submitted, half of which I wrote and most of the rest written was written by one of the group regulars of the time named "Snoopy", I put it all together and posted the first FAQ onto the Internet.

The first FAQ had only 25 articles, and was close to what one might refer to as a collection of answers to frequently asked questions, but in my spare time over the years I have added to it. The original web site talked of share investment and trading, bonds and collectibles, a great deal of coaxing failed to bring out a single person willing to write anything at all on real estate, tax or anything else. Eventually I became a financial planner and picked up a lot of this myself, so I added these sections over time. Now the FAQ is in its third major revision and contains over 400 articles, it has grown to the point where it no longer just answers "frequently asked" questions, but is now one of the largest and most comprehensive investment sites on the Internet.

I intend to continually upgrade the web site without limit, these days I am keeping myself busy as a professional adviser and have less time to write articles, but I find it enjoyable and certainly educational (for me as well, because it provides a structure to my quest to learn more about investment), people tell me it helped them a lot so I see no reason to stop.