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accounts to be done, they'd be the ones to do itnot you, the investor. You gave away your own decision-making power in favor of the greater knowledge, experience, and access to research information and execution possessed by your broker. |
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So, unless you were a trader on the floor of one of the exchanges or an institutional money manager, your opportunities to trade more than occasionally were very limited. And this almost dictated a buy-and-hold approach to investing. |
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Companies were viewed as slowly growing their revenues and (to use a term that wasn't in existence) their "bottom line" over many years, with the investor holding stock and profiting as the company slowly grew to maturity, full productivity, and prosperity. You looked forward to a nice annual dividend if all went well, and maybe an occasional stock split. You married a stock for good times and bad, in sickness and in healthoften literally until you died. |
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In some ways, it was like becoming attached to the hometown baseball or football team, in that you identified with the company and rooted for its success. And when you left this earth, the stock was finally sold and the gains were distributed to your heirs. The obituary of a typical investor might have read: "He was a good husband, father, dutiful son, and a dedicated employee. He was a God-fearing man who went to church and a loyal member of his local Kiwanis Club. He was also an astute investor, a life-long holder of 200 shares of Standard Oil." It was a perfectly adequate model for the 1960s, 1970s, and even into the 1980s. |
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But we're in a new cybergame for a new millenniumand obviously the rules have changed. And anybody who doesn't see the changes as they are occurring and accommodate them will simply be left behind. The Wall Street parade will have passed them by. Instead of being on the forefront of the curve, they will be bringing up the rear. |
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As usual in the Age of Information, the key is being an early adopter. You've got to have access to the information, choose to pay attention to it, and then skillfully apply it. And, of course, you've got to have the capital to invest. One result for those who feel they have not gained their fair share of the pie has been an outbreak of a particularly virulent strain of envy, which we will address in Chapter 11. |
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How have these changes in the securities markets influenced the way investors look at their options today, in a cybermarket? What does trader's-mind (that is, the typical way traders tend to |
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