THE EVOLUTION OF SECURITIES
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carpets, hosiery, shirts, underwear, hides, leather, shoes, bank
notes, express service, safety razors, writing paper, magazines,
graphophones, office appliances, docks, glass bottles, type-
writers, real estate, and perfumery and toilet articles. And
almost weekly the list grows with the addition of the securities
of new and different enterprises.
The bond issues listed on the Stock Exchange are even
more numerous than the stock issues, for in addition to a vast
range of corporate bonds, the list contains the loans of govern-
ments, provinces, or cities on every continent in the world ex-
cept Africa. While foreign government obligations have been
listed extensively on this Exchange only during recent years,
already they have become sufficiently numerous to make this
one of the principal markets for foreign government bonds in
the world. Many foreign company bonds and shares have also
been recently listed. On the New York Stock Exchange each
day, prices are established for the obligations of practically all
the leading nations in the world, to say nothing of their
provinces and cities, and also for the stocks and bonds of
practically all known forms of large-scale business enterprise.
The modern investor thus has placed at his ready disposal a
range of possibilities for investment which literally reaches
“from China to Peru.”
The Chief Kinds of Securities.—From the standpoint of
the relationship between the investor and the thing in which
he invests, Stock Exchange securities may be divided into two
principal classes—bonds and shares. In America the word
“stock” is ordinarily used to denote shares, but in England
these two terms are not thus synonymous, and “stock” usually
refers to governmental or corporate debts. Occasionally the
word is employed with this English meaning in the United
States. as for example, “New York City Stock.”
Bonds.—Bonds represent a debt of a government or a busi-
ness company. As the bond certificate usually states, the given
