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Gold/Mining/Energy : Copper Fox
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To: Tap66 who wrote (9427)4/2/2015 12:59:24 PM
From: louel3 Recommendations

Recommended By
CanadaGrant
minder
Tap66

   of 10654
 
I know this is a bit off topic but it may be interesting to some of the younger set what investing used to be like just a few years ago.
44 years ago when I started. There was no internet so no computers. Stock quotes were published daily in the finance section of the Vancouver Sun, Wall Street Journal, Financial Post or another paper you subscribed to. Only weekly for many low volume or non Blue chip stocks. No discount Brokers where orders are filled for under $10 like today. Buys and Sell charges ranged from 1.5 to 4.5 cents per share depending on the stock price and how big the order was, plus a set handling fee for the house you dealt with.

My broker only accepted orders that were simply buy into the ask or sell into the bid till filled, when he received the order, by either snail mail or by long distance phone call if you lived in a small community.

Brokers were only located in the bigger centers. In Canada Banks were not permitted to broker stocks.
All research was done by relying on what your broker told you compared to what you could glean from the news papers and the prospectus the company would send you by mail if asked for. One always had to be on guard when your Broker phoned, that he was not just trying to get you to buy or sell in order to fill an order for a larger client and make commissions.

In order to look at a chart I had an easel in the corner of my office with a drafting paper pad on it. I would start the chart a couple of weeks before I bought. Then each morning extend a line up or down to the last published closing price for each stock on a separate sheet. That way I could see the trend at a glance rather than having to remember where price had been . There was no other current charts available to look at.
There was more to it than just this but I think it suggests the kind work you had to put into it.

My first awareness in stocks was when my Uncle gambled with a $10,000 mortgage on his farm & bought Bethlehem Copper (Now Teck Highland Valley) at 7 or 8 cents in 1956 and made a fortune on it.

Yeah times have certainly changed. Specy remembers back those days. Probably a few others to.
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