We live in the "Information Age," and this applies to investing for incomes as well.
The amount of financial data available to investors is unprecedented in history.
Investors Didn't Always Know a Company's Financial Statements
Back in the Dinosaur Era when I was extremely young, all the average investor could do was look up a stock in the financial pages of their local metropolitan newspaper and see its closing price for the day, with how much it changed since the day before. And its one year low and high.
The financial section could also include some articles reprinted from a news service on how well the economy and markets were doing. And perhaps a business story on a company, especially local ones.
To get anything more on your own, you had to subscribe to The Wall Street Journal, which did go into more depth, but mainly had a lot more business news on companies.
You could request a company's annual report. You could call them up (which would have required paying for a long distance call), or write them a letter. Eventually it would show up in your mail.
You could visit companies, but you'd get the tourist tour (Anheuser-Busch's tours of its St Louis facilities were always popular for the free beer at the end.), but you didn't have any favored access. And visiting out of town companies would have been expensive.
I have to assume documentation from the SEC was publicly available, but they probably would have charged a fee for the cost of printing.
I don't believe AT&T; could handle conference calls in those days. If companies did hold them, only Wall Street analysts would have been invited.
I do believe some stock market charting services were available to the general public, for a steep price.
Only Brokers Had Access to Detailed, Up to Date Financial Info
For more up to date information, you relied on research from your broker. That's how brokers justified the high commissions they all charged prior to a change in SEC rules in 1975.
Large brokerage firms did have full time analysts who had some insider access to the companies. In a way, that research is what you paid for more than the simple buying and selling of stocks on the exchanges.
Of course, the average investor didn't take raw data home from their broker and run down the figures at night. Maybe a few did, but the average person simply nodded when the broker said, "We really recommend General Motors right now." And bought General Motors.
Yet Blue Chip, Dividend Paying Stocks Made People Wealthy
And despite a lack of data that would make modern investors feel as though they were flying a jet blind, and despite confiscatory-level commissions, people still got wealthy in the long term by buying stocks, especially blue chips that typically pay dividends, and holding them.
Isn't that interesting?
Personally, although I don't want to return to those days, I believe that too many investors allow too much data to affect their investing.
None of this Data Predicts the Future Anyway
For one thing, it's been proven time and again that it's impossible to predict the course of individual stocks and the market.
And Fund Pros are Still Way Ahead of You
For another thing, many professionals are trying -- and these managers of mutual funds, hedge funds and institutional funds have access to more data and computational power than average investors, and analyzing it is their full-time job.
No matter how hard you run . . . no matter how many real-time price and charting services you subscribe to, how many trading platforms you access, how many websites and blogs you read, how many investing forums you hang out at -- you're behind.
And even the pros can't beat the market long-term, so why even try to catch up with them?
We're so busy drowning in data we don't have time to organize it into useful information.
All You Really Need is to Know About Diversified Sources of Investing Incomes
All you really need to know is, what are the securities that pay you investing incomes?
Set up a system of buying bonds and stocks that pay dividends. Keep buying them, and keep reinvesting your investing for incomes (unless you're retired and need the money for bills.) Everything else is pointless busy work.
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