The work of the Stock Exchange

Bibliographic data

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.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VI. A typical investment transaction

Collection:: Economics Books

174 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE Yet, however confused the spectator’s mind may become at it all, the members of the Stock Exchange are so accustomed to the clamor of the market place that they are as a rule neither excited nor confused. As subsequent chapters may partially succeed in establishing, it would require years of patient study and observation, as well as no slight degree of imagination and intelligence, before an observer in the gallery could perceive the stock market below him with adequate knowledge and comprehension. But, as has been once stated,? if the onlooker from this vantage point possessed these several and difficult qualifications: He would see purchases for investments; he would see sales on behalf of persons wishing to convert their securities for one reason or another ; he would see purchases and sales for the dealers in odd lots to meet the needs of the small investor; he would see purchases and sales with a purely speculative purpose; he would see the floor trader buying and selling for the profit of the hour; he would see the arbi- trageur selling securities that he has bought in London, or Paris, or Amsterdam, or Berlin the same day, or buying here the securities he has sold on a foreign exchange the same day. Every transaction is recorded, and the quotations that go out are the result of all these manifold operations. They are the product of the judgments, tempera- ments, hopes, fears and doubts of the vast multitude that participate in them. It is a scene of competition; the conservatism of investment face to face with the enterprise of speculation; speculation in the expectation of a rise in pricesqwith speculation in the expectation of a fall; optimism with pessimism; and the resultant of this play of forces is the market price of the securities dealt in moment by moment, hour by hour. The exchange is the crucible in which all these various ele- ments are, as it were, chemically combined and concentrated to produce what we call market values. All these elements are indispensable as supplements and correctives of each other. Eliminate speculation and the conservatism of investment would arrest the development of the country. Eliminate speculation in the expectation of a fall in prices and the danger of inflation of prices would be constant. Without the free interplay of all these forces a market would not perform its func- tion of fixing prices for the purposes of trade and commerce. TT @ See Regulation of the Stock Exchange, pp. 531-532,

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