Study probes e-trade motivation

Delving into the lives of internet share traders might reveal a lot more than just bank balances.

University of Queensland PhD student Margery Mayall is conducting a sociological study on internet share traders and their motivations, attitudes and why they are hooked.

Ms Mayall, a former accountant, said little research had been done on the social rationale of e-trading and investing generally.

She wants to find out why traders are increasingly using the internet to trade, how it affects them and if the immediacy of internet trading spilled into other aspects of their life.

“There are plenty of textbooks out there on how to trade but I’m looking at why, why now and just who is doing it and have they got this whole sense of how they look at the world which is why they choose to trade, or is this just an isolated activity,” Ms Mayall said.

“Are they (traders) immediately buying everything over the internet because they can’t wait to go out to a shop?

“We have technology which is totally different from years ago – I mean the whole concept of trading shares on the internet wasn’t even around a few years ago.”

She said this partly explained the emergence of the new “postmodern” person – who was rejecting established institutions such as governments, family networks and full time employment in favour of self-reliance using modern technology.

A broader issue was that of individualisation where traders might have accepted their immediate future was not working for anyone.

The study’s working title is A Day in the Life of a Market Trader: A sociological study of people who trade shares and derivatives on the internet.

Ms Mayall needs more than 30 volunteer traders for her study who trade regularly and usually hold stocks for periods of less than three weeks.

Confidential interviews of internet traders are expected to start this month.

Volunteers: contact Ms Mayall (phone: 0422 125 002, 3365 3150 email: m.mayall@uq.edu.au). Media: contact Miguel Holland at UQ Communications on (phone: 3365 2619, email: m.holland@uq.edu.au)