49% of People Do Not Research Investments Before Buying

A new study completed up here in Canada found out something that I find completely amazing – and downright silly. This quote sums it up:

…49 per cent said they did not personally research their most recent investment even though 92 per cent of respondents agreed on the importance of doing independent research before investing

Read that again, 49% of the respondents in this survey (7568 respondents) buy an investment without personally researching it. Now I can sort of understand this if you are using an investment advisor – however does it not make sense to do a bit of resaerch to ensure your advisor is not on crack!

To me, this is the big problem with the investment industry today. It is very easy for advisors / mutual fund companies etc to fleece the investing public because they have no clue what is happening in their own portfolios. I am reminded of the analogy that most people spend more time analyzing the purchase of a TV than they do when buying a stock or mutual fund. I cannot imagine simply buying one of my dividend stocks without understanding at least if sales and earnings have gone up. I don’t think it is rocket science, as I talk about in this article, it just takes a little bit of time.