OSNews

I blame it on e*trade and their subsequent followers. I wrestle with the concept, because I like the idea of empowerment for investors to manage trades themselves, but it has created a paradigm shift in the relationship between shareholder and vested corporation. There was a time when investing money was a commitment, it was inconvenient, you relied on professionals to handle it for you and they attached a considerable fee for their management, which discouraged whimsical speculation. There was a time, oh so long ago, that people invested money in a corporation expecting long term return. Now it's a hobby to share info on forums and short stocks at a whim, and otherwise play havoc with share valuation.

Like I said, I wrestle with it because, on the one hand, it's a powerful form of self-empowerment and represents many of the benefits that I think the internet enables, but at the same time, we have companies being held hostage now in many cases by shareholders demanding immediate and continual short-term growth, so CEO's and boards of directors inevitably buckle and often strive for immediate gratification, at the expense of long-term planning and strategy.

High-level executives often switch positions so often now that nobody has a vested stake in seeing their ideas through, they often just create enough havoc to make their mark, move on, and leave it to someone else to clean up the mess...