Apology accepted Sinister, sorry for any misinterpretation by me, and perhaps others.

Your comment about contacting brokers has been done before. Some investors get the "trading" stance from brokers, whereas investors are a little different breed. Also, brokers don,t really have the time to dig deep on the actual assets of the company, as many hands here have done.They may direct you to analyst reports in some cases, but where brokers handle so many different stocks, its impossible for them to be well versed on every stock they buy and sell for investors. So, there is a huge communication gap present between what the broker has and what the investor actually needs to make an enhanced informed decision. Agoracom, among other investor forums, help close this gap and helps investors to understand more the dynamics of the markets as well as to what they actually invested into.

Investors are investors, not traders. A quick prospectus can be handed to any investor by their broker, but does the investor actually understand what they are reading? Is it not better to have that very prospectus elaborated upon and discussed in the course of education? Does a broker have this time to go over a prospectus in detail with his client?

When this happens, not the brokers fault of course, the broker ends up sharing only information that is as good as his surface perspective, which is ok for "traders". Its when investors choose to look deeper, and connect more dots, that a broader and more open perspective and understanding is received.

thank you

PS; I gave you the thumbs up on your post Sinister, for your apology

rick