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 127 Superficial Resemblances.—Speculation and gambling, of course, sometimes possess superficial resemblances. The motive for both may alike consist in a rash and unintelligent willing- ness to take large risks for large possible profits. A man can, »f course, lose just as much money in unwise speculation as he can by “playing the races,” yet it does not follow that a stock market is a race-course. It is also true that some speculators use no more intelligence in purchasing or selling securities than as if they were blindly gambling upon an undeterminable future event. One worthy citizen is said to have taken a “long posi- tion” on certain speculative securities in a “bear market” be- cause of the advice of a medium, who claimed to evoke the spirits of great American financiers. Extraordinarily enough, he was not inclined to blame the Stock Exchange for his losses afterwards. Yet just such episodes as this raise the query why the Ex- change should be visited with righteous wrath because specu- lators lose money through unwise ventures, when the similar lack of intelligence in other speculative lines of business evokes no such bitterness. A large proportion of all business enter- prises undertaken in this country ultimately result in failure, and undoubtedly the cause is mainly ignorance and folly on the part of the management. America, too, has its share of poorly trained, inefficient business men who speculate with their sav- Ings and inheritances in poor real estate, impossible retail shops, and all manner of harebrained and unlikely enterprises every year, which soon exhaust their funds and leave them bankrupt. But they have no target later to direct their resentment against, while the losing speculator in securities can always blame the Stock Exchange for his own folly. Gambling Forbidden on the Stock Exchange.—It is one of the principal services of the Stock Exchange to maintain a speculative market for speculative securities. But any form of gambling on the Exchange floor has long been prohibited. Its Rules (Chapter XIV, Sections 6 and 7) forbid “offers on the

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