Sorta?
Historically you typically bought shares in blocks of 100 and the transaction fees were also meaningful.
You couldn't easily buy 1 share of a $20 stock. If you had to buy 100 shares @ $20, that's $2,000 - in 1970 that was a lot of money.
Now, of course, you can buy fractional shares with no transaction fees. (Ignoring things like payment for order flow, etc.)
Re:Charlie Munger has died
by WalterBright on Tuesday November 28, 2023 @11:14PM
(#38455495)
My first stock purchase was in 1982. 60 shares of Boeing at $16/share and $29.52 commission.
So that is about $3k in todays money you had laying around and could risk. Are you sure you are well attuned what is within the reach of the common man?
Re:Charlie Munger has died
by WalterBright on Wednesday November 29, 2023 @05:08AM
(#38457588)
It took me a while to save up the money. I had an entry level salary at Boeing, which was an average salary for a newly minted engineer.
I also had an ancient car and a cheap apartment, and didn't spend money on booze.
Average new car prices were $14,000 in 1982. I bought my car for $800. So yeah, I'd say investing $1,000 was well within common man finances.
Oh baloney. I signed up for a Schwab account and started buying stocks at my first job long before the internet. My dad started buying stocks in the 1940s on his military pay (never much). Elevator boys were famously buying stocks in the 1920s.
All the "reach" required was some get-up-and-go to sign up for a brokerage account. It didn't cost anything. They didn't check your tax returns or do a credit check.
The whole point of the stock market was to sell stock to anyone who would buy it.