Editor’s Note: How a humble stock got me started on the JSE
OUR SPECIAL EDITION on ranking the stockbrokers got me thinking about how much this noble vocation has changed over the decades.I have been dealing with stockbrokers since the late 1980s. When I left Business Day after a short stint (I did not enjoy Johannesburg) to join the old Argus in Cape Town, I cashed out my pension fund (all R1,038 of it) and took it to a small brokerage in central Cape Town.I recall the stockbroker — who was not keen on dealing with such a princely sum — urging me to put the money in a 32-day notice account or unit trust. But I persisted, and became the proud owner of 967 shares in small industrial services counter Toco Holdings.In those days you would receive a real share certificate — the Toco paper emblazoned with the company’s logo, a snorting bull. Share certificates (and I still have a few for framing) were so damned tangible — almost like holding a Krugerrand. They were posted to you, or you had to fetch them from the broker’s office. And scrip divide...
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