Faxes to apps: CommSec's 30 years of shaping investing
"Everyone was teasing me afterwards," she told AAP.
"Most people, especially all the mums, didn't have any idea about investing."
At the time, Ms Bennett's husband was overseas and had asked her to sell the shares on his behalf.
But she soon began trading for herself.
"I was very popular at dinner parties and everybody wanted tips." she said.
Ms Bennett collected information through newspapers and word-of-mouth and her trades were done over the phone and using fax machines.
"It was really hard to know and, trust me, I had a few losses," she said.
Now 65, she was one of CommSec's earliest customers.
The online trading platform, parented by the CBA, is this week celebrating its 30th anniversary, having paved the way for Australian investors.
In 1997, CommSec became the first Australian broker to launch a share trading website, and in 2008, the first to have its own iPhone trading app.
The company now facilitates 40,000 trades per day, worth a total of $575 million.
It's a far cry from their opening day in 1995, where a total of four trades were put through, worth $75 each.
Market analyst Tom Piotrowski started working for CommSec more than 20 years ago, back when the company's team fitted onto a single floor.
He has worked through the vast majority of the biggest days on the ASX, entering the company just after the volatile Y2K period, swiftly followed by the Global Financial Crisis, then most recently the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I don't know if it was me turning up that translated to this run of bad luck, but it certainly made it interesting to be a participant in communicating these things to audiences," he said.
"It's that type of environment that serves as education for people."
The periods acted as catalysts for change according to Mr Piotrowski, who has overcome his camera shyness to feature on television, and social media videos providing information to customers.
"I'd never appeared in front of a television camera before I worked with CommSec, that was very obvious to anyone who may have seen my early efforts," he said.
"Terror is probably a personal feeling that I experienced quite a bit."
CommSec services form just one part of the information now readily available to investors across multiple trading websites and apps.
Ms Bennett didn't know any other women who traded when she started, but has noticed a shift with the increase in accessibility.
The amount of CommSec investors under 40 have more than doubled over the past 10 years, while the percentage of women who invest has almost tripled over the past five years.
"All my children trade, my daughter included," Ms Bennett said.
"They're all confident enough to do it, they know what they're doing and they can get more information."
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