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 XVII. The stock exchange and American business

Collection:: Economics Books

472 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE the trouble was, he declared that “the Indian monsoon was not blowing well.” When his interviewer failed to see the connec- tion between the climate in India and the banker’s business in securities he was told, “If the monsoon fails, there will be a drought in India, and the bazaars will be forced to sell silver. If oriental silver comes on the market, it will depreciate the oriental exchanges, which are founded on silver. This will in turn temporarily ruin the market there for cheap British tex- tiles, because it will decrease the buying power of the pur- chaser’s money. If the Lancashire district in England slows down, it will not buy textile machinery, and I am vitally inter- ested in the stock of an American company making textile ma- chinery.” Far-fetched as this chain of hypotheses may seem, nevertheless almost exactly this sequence of events actually occurred some months afterwards. It is consequently natural that a leading tenet in the philosophy of Wall Street men is the old adage of the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, to the effect that “all things flow,” and that the only changeless feature of life is the principle of change itself. The Wall Street Point of View.—From one standpoint the vision of Wall Street, and of the business men all over the country who do extensive business there, is as wide as the world, as deep as the deepest mineshaft, and as high as the loftiest soaring aeroplane. And yet, because its inhabitants and its customers are human beings, its viewpoint is in many ways limited and parochial, too. The intense stress and strain under which most men live there has made them only too apt to credit glib assertions and superficial deductions, and to have a highly specialized yet hazy and limited conception of the vast economic forces which converge upon the narrow Stock Exchange floor. Men who year after year are cliff dwellers in the great gray canyons of the New York financial district are through force of circumstances often unable to look fur- ther into the future than the prices on the stock ticker. This often amounts to seeing into the future some three to six

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