ABSTRACT
Over the past ten to fifteen years, individual investing has evolved from a niche activity to a mass phenomenon, largely due to the virtualization of the stock market and the computerization of buying and selling (Zwick 2005; Zwick and Dholakia 2006). In the United States and some European countries the 1997-99 period witnessed a growing interest in stocks and the stock market in general, spawning something like a gold rush mentality, especially among younger investors. Online investing has been hailed as the democratization of Wall Street and as a major factor in the spreading of the “ownership society.” The USA has more investors than any other country in the world (Staute 1998) and perhaps somewhat logically, the United States became the first place to crack the fortress of the “Masters of the Universe” (Wolfe 1987) – those Wall Street insiders who seemed to have exclusive knowledge of the financial world, controlled its transactions, and made the rules. By the late 1990s, armed with a personal computer, an Internet connection, and an online
brokerage account from companies such as e-Trade and Ameritrade, individuals began to takematters into their own hands. Thus, by 2000, individual online stock trading had become the ultimate American pastime. As one commentator remarked:
This [online investing and day trading] is not about money-grubbing; it’s a new democratic revolution. Day trading, like the right to own dirty magazines, the privilege of serving in our armed forces, is a fail-safe against the loss of individual freedom – which for Americans is the same thing as collective freedom – and for that matter is the only sure way to keep your soul intact. Now an investor controls his own life so he can make the final call, so no one can delude him into thinking that the buying and selling of stocks is more complicated than a couple of mouse clicks, so
nothing can obstruct his inherent right to unload his losers on the next bigger dope to come along. And what could be more American than that?
