The work of the Stock Exchange

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1831284952

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-225876

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Meeker, James Edward http://d-nb.info/gnd/126597340

Title:: The work of the Stock Exchange

Edition:: Revised edition

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: The Ronald Press Company

Year of publication:: [1930]

Scope:: XVI, 720 Seiten; Illustrationen, Diagramme

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter V. The dangers and benefits of stock speculation

Collection:: Economics Books

STOCK SPECULATION—DANGERS AND BENEFITS 141 Professional men also are frequent if not universal speculators. The lawyer and the doctor who spend money (sometimes bor- rowed) to obtain their technical training, with the hope of later recovering it from future earnings, are speculators of the purest dye. Even the grim old New England adage, “There’s nothing sure but death and taxes,” is belied by the insurance companies and the tax experts, two highly speculative pursuits. Everywhere in the world that inevitable business risks have arisen, some speculator has been forced to assume them, either of necessity, or voluntarily in the hope of a large possible profit. These risks can no more be abolished by legislative fiat than the tides can be halted. They are inherent in the nature of things. And thus modern corporations pass on their risks to their share certificates and to the individuals who own them. With the augmentation of the volume of business and the processes of specialization rising to sustain it, a special class of speculators has been created who make it their business to assume the risks of enterprise for a possible profit, by buying and selling corporate shares. For the same reason, organized markets have sprung up for securities, where this necessary and inevitable traffic in the risks of business by speculators can be conducted in the fairest, most efficient, and least hazardous manner. Antiquity of Speculation.—Speculation is an immemorial handmaiden and companion of trade. Every schoolboy has read how, in the dawn of history, Joseph anticipated the “cycle theory” of prices by his dream of seven fat and seven lean years, and by accumulating and “cornering” wheat, prospered exceedingly in the land of ‘Mizraim, in the shadow of the recently erected Pyramids. The more curious student of his- tory may likewise have run upon the story of the ancient Greek philosopher, Thales, who, upon being jeered at by the king 2 “Thales, being a man of moderate means, worked his corner by securing options on the use of the presses at the next harvest season.” (H. C. Emery, Speculation on the Stock and Produce Exchanges of the United States, p. 33). The original citation of Thales’ corner can be found in Aristotle’s Politics (Jowett's rranslation) 1, II, 58.

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