The Web has completely changed how we communicate and of course how we invest. Need a stock quote? Don’t have to call your broker for something mundane like that. Need to research a company? It’s a click away. That’s the good news.
The bad news is, like most media, the web is based primarily upon advertising. Advertisers want to get people to look at their advertising as much as possible. That means constant updates and exciting or scary stories. For stuff about what Lady Gaga is up to, that’s fine. But when it comes to long term investments, it’s not really appropriate to have lurid updates every 10 minutes. But that’s the job of the web, to get you to look. Unfortunately it has a tendency to scare investors both ways. Scare them into selling something solid because of some economic data, or buy something inappropriate because they are afraid they’ll miss out on the next Apple.
The other bad news is one of content. Fred Smith down the street cannot deliver the Fred’s Wall Street Journal to every door step. But Fred can set up a very professional looking website. Heck look at Google’s main search page. Looks like it was done by a high school student. Looking professional is very easy and it gives us comfort in the information there. But you cannot tell the quality of the information by looking at a web page. There are all sorts of people out there, putting out all sorts of stuff. If I type ‘dividends’ into Google, I get 25 million hits. But with ‘aliens’ I get 40 million hits. Apparently aliens are more important than dividends (Lady Gaga gets you 120 million)..
My point is, you have to take all of this with a pillar of salt (smile). Don’t let the craziness of every 10 minute updates and speculative stories drive you mad. Investing is a long term endeavor, and the internet hasn’t changed that at all.