Has Stock Market Investing Changed?

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The biblical text for stock market investors should be, "Buy no more than ye can afford to lose." Ignoring this principle has made for good books, movie scripts, and everything up to opportunities for funeral homes. Things change all the time, but this is the one immutable law of investing. However, things do change.

Once upon a time, long long ago, ten or fifteen years ago, the absolute ultimate in realtime stock market quotations was a large personal c-band antenna out in the side yard hooked to a receiver and TV inside a brick and mortar office. It was a rig that was definitely not meant for amateurs. Real time quotes in the office. Unimaginable! But if the stock broker's office was fancy enough, there it was in all of its magnificent glory. Most impressive.

Used to be that you'd pull up a chair at the local stock broker's digs and have him open a stock market account for you. Unless you had been to school on the matter, or your library was well stocked with worn, and probably old texts on stock market investing, there was little chance you'd ever see the inside of his office, unless you emptied the trash, or repaired the office fridge, so as to keep the tea cold. Stock market investing definitely had a magic to it...an aura that impressed the lesser mortals of the town.

Nowadays, anyone with a line of credit and a computer with enough juice to ring up the internet can be their own broker, wheeling and dealing in stocks. You can open your own account, buy and sell your own pics, and the local stock broker be danged. Even so, the time of the stockbroker is said to be not over. There are many reasons that folks still use them, and I don't mean just old fuddies still stuck in the mud either. Particularly, if you're just starting out, and there is a man in town that can help you make the moolah, why wouldn't you use his talents? The object of the game is profit. It profiteth a man nothing if he gain a stock market trade and loseth his bank account in the process. It is arguable that if a flesh and bone stockbroker can make a profit for you, that you couldn't make for yourself, then you're ahead of the game by using him. Ipso facto, endamundo.

One scholar noted that the very fact that it is so easy to trade stocks online these days makes the practice a tempting target for abuse. So what does happen with a born gambling addict discovers the stock market? You think he wouldn't bet the farm in a heartbeat? Old timey stockbrokers, if they were decent, served as a buffer against abuse. At this point in time, it's Dodge City when the Marshall is out of town of a Saturday evening every day for the internet stock market investor... And day traders are the worst of the lot. They might buy pork bellies at 10.22 and sell them at 10.23... for a profit. Before the internet, this just wasn't feasible. It's all fun and games until you manage to burn down the internet because somebody started a rumor that pork bellies are bad for your teeth, etc.

They say there's nothing quite like getting your feet all wet by jumping straight into things. As far as stock market investing goes, they would be somewhat wrong. Well, in a way, there might be nothing quite like it, save for catching your hair on fire.

No, if you have a notion of becoming the next Malcom Forbes, you need to do your homework. Luckily, thanks to internet, there are tons of resources, even to stock market simulators, so you can test your mettle with play money. When and only when you have paid your dues with Monopoly money, and earnest learnings through diligent research, should you cautiously apply a toe to the water. That way, the worst that can happen is that you'll earn a get a frosty toe. Beats a broke neck, speaking of diving straight in.

The stock market is a skittish and screwey animal, which has never been quite classified. It will spook and run straight into a barn fire, or away from a thrown snuff can, but then, sit there calmly munching on grass and bugs and stuff during half time at the superbowl. There's just no figuring the thing out completely. If it was easy, even grandma would be doing stocks. My apologies to any grandmas who do stocks.

Of course, there are two ways you can do your part to do your utmost to insure stock happiness and that is to invest in The Prudent Speculator, a Forbes Publication, and the Forbes Special Situation Survey. As investments go, this is pretty much a no brainer. Buy at a low cost, and reap HIGH rewards!