Dividend reinvestment was the way mom and pop gained from the stock market, thatâs were most of the gains use to come from. Boy how things have changed. It all started with Allen Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers. Now we have a casino.
This is true, look at your buy and hold return from 2000-2010, it would be negative unless you reinvested what divided you earned.
E-Trade was available on CompuServe in 1991. Schwab had some sort of proprietary online service too. "Online" need not mean "Internet".
I remember waking up the neighbors in my apartment building at 6:30 AM, (west coaster here), screaming into the telephone that I wanted my confirmation before we hang up.
Hehe...brings back memories of my broker saying "OK, I'll call you back when your order is filled," and I'd say "thanks" and hang up. Those were the days...I would feel guilty when using odd lots. With all the technology now, no one starts out that green anymore, I know.
And depending on your Market you probably didn't get one. Back in the day phone service and trading was but yet another friction in the process.
Yes. Technology has changed everything. I started online trading via a phone line in late 1990's. It was slow, slow, slow .......... Along came cable modem and DSL. The difference is like day and night.
I see this all the time on this forum, and my response to you is: so what? Not to challenge your assertion or be rude -- you're right, but ... Hear me out -- it's perfectly healthy for all these people to want to try and become day traders, even against all odds. The same goes for wanting to become a rock star or a movie star. I'm under the impression that most people lead really, really terrible lives. The thing that makes life worth living for these people is -a- shot, even if it's a slim shot. IMO, the delusion of future success is a fine one. If anything, we should encourage it. If we discourage it, the flow of easy money doesn't work its way into the markets. I suffer from delusions of grandeur myself, but I'm content with living the lie because it still gives me a very solid reason to get up every morning.
There is as much stupidity as there is truth to this constant barrage of â95% of all traders are losersâ and âThey found that the average trader's returns were about 6.5% less than the overall market. â In the 20+ years of trading I blew accounts (my records show it was three). I did it just like any one else. There was a price to pay to learn trading. I found I was not a day trader and never will be. However, the swing trader I became has made me very happy and retired. But it was not easy. We all pay a price to get where we want to be whether it is a day job or a trader. Like I tell my kids and grand kids âeverything in life is hard before it gets easyâ. Yet I hear comment after comment that everyone is a loser on ET and they will never succeed at trading. It is only true if you want it to be true. I was no wiz kid in my day job for years. But through persistence I got the managers job at the end of my career before I retired. It was worth the wait. I had to pay a big price and work long hours to get that job just like I did in learning trading. But trading is like a day job, if you have the passion and you are willing to pay the price the odds can roll in your favor. But one the main things those surveys fail miserably at is the self-assurance trading can give a person in making major monetary decisions. With my wifeâs and my long term assets I used my swing trading knowledge of longer term trends to avoid taking a big hair cut in my assets in 2008. If I had not learned to understand trends today I might be a greeter at Walmart repeating over and over to my self âWhat happened! How did I not see this coming?â Instead Iâm planning a summer break at the lake. I think I will go over to Walmart and see what is on sale for summer. Because Iâm the bossâ¦