HOW TO MAKE SIMPLE Investor Converts To HOW TO MAKE SIMPLE step 2. 0 Real estate investor
So long” financial advisors, “goodbye” financial services industry and “help you later” Wall Street. A ‘new-breed’ of DIY investor has been empowered, equipped and enabled to leave all three of these within their rearview mirror. This ‘new-breed’, which I make reference to as a DIY 2.0 Investor, will be transformed because of the Web 2.0.
The brand new paradigm of DIY investors has chosen to harness the potential of this realtime knowledge revolution and its’ instant availability, accessibility, verifiability and deliverability of information to anybody, anywhere, whenever and to any web capable device. Exactly what a powerful transformative resource that is now at our fingertips providing factual and truthful information and all at no cost. Self-empowerment at its best!
An excellent place to start this discussion is by using a quick history lesson.
Investing from the beginning up until the early 90’s changed very little. Being a ‘1.0 Investor’ meant your only choice was to invest via a stock broker that bought and sold individual stocks and or mutual funds on your behalf. In the mid 90’s, the net provided the catalyst for low-cost brokers to leverage the internet’s ability and begin offering on-line trading for those DIY investors brave enough to defend myself against the challenge. This shifted the control of investing from the stock broker to the DIY investor and these infrastructure equity DIY’ers were pioneers as they’d to research, analyze, buy and sell on the own. Naturally, few investors were brave enough to defend myself against this rogue course of action.
By the mid to late 90’s however, the net and it ability to generally share information, access websites and stream stock quotes, advanced this rogue number of DIY investors into what we now know as ‘the-crazed-day-traders’ ;.With the technology stocks warming up, analytical tools coming on-line, investors dumping their stock brokers and advisors to brave the DIY waters, their only thoughts were the riches and wealth that awaited them. This amount of “irrational exuberance” lasted until the Technology or Dot-Com Bubble burst in 2001-2002…and burst it did, costing trillions in investor losses. These early DIY investors that have been overcome with “irrational exuberance” whilst the markets were increasing, unfortunately were rationally humbled when underneath fell out. Lesson learned and these types of early DIY’ers returned to the comfort of financial advisors.
In 2006-2008, the ‘Housing Bubble’ formed and it too burst with similar results for investors, trillions in investment losses, again. The investor’s professional financial advisors were supposed to have most of the answers and protect their client’s assets. Investors found this was incorrect as the financial firms of Wall Street were busy serving their very own interest by selling highly complex and speculative products to their investors. Another tough lesson learned.
DIY investors and professional financial advisors both failed miserably from 1998 – 2008. These historical events and developments caused a metamorphosis for a ‘new-breed’ of investor. This ‘new-breed’ of investor lifted themselves up, licked their wounds and committed to learn to play a new game…a winner’s game…transforming themselves into DIY 2.0 Investors!
This new paradigm evolving from the Web 2.0 can be an intoxicating and empowering movement providing knowledge at the speed of thought. The Web 2.0 is allowing each folks to make informed decisions that people could not need done ten years ago, and it’s all within our hand.
The DIY 2.0 Investor is embracing this realtime Web 2.0 Revolution to compete, and competing to win. A recent study by Cogent Research of Gen X Investors demonstrated a dramatic change in fortune. This ‘new-breed’ of Gen X DIY 2.0 investors experienced a 28% return in 2010, while their peers who turned to an expert financial advisor for guidance, reported only 3%, during the same time period. Whose game can you rather play?