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

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

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

Collection:: Economics Books

150 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE national boundaries were shattered by the stroke of a pen. Almost the whole complex system of international trade and finance was seriously dislocated. While over-production and unsalable surplus overflowed the warehouses of some countries, in others arose the greatest goods famine of modern times. Over all extensive unemployment cast its dark and lengthening shadow. Many serious thinkers declared that civilization had ~ommitted suicide, that international finance would never re- cover, that the gold standard had been destroyed, and that industry and trade had received their death-blow. Only a ruinous period of economic prostration loomed ahead. Tt was under these conditions that the venturesome buyers of speculative securities dared to sustain both public and private credit by purchasing stocks and bonds. The New York market led the way, but presently other centers both here and abroad also rallied to the task. Confidence, exhibiting itself on the Stock Exchange feebly at first but soon stronger and stronger, followed the ticker tape’s ascending prices upwards. Loans were floated for embarrassed foreign governments and totter- ing industries. That virile spark of faith in the future first struck on the Stock Exchange spread from industry to industry, and from nation .to nation. And soon the factory chimneys of the world smoked again, its harbors swarmed anew with the bustle and clamor of commerce, and its mills shook with the roar of renewed production. Function of the Stock Speculator.—The stock speculator, then, is needed at all times by American industry to absorb and argely segregate its risks, and thus make conservative invest- ing possible for less daring men. New enterprises, and weak ancertain enterprises particularly, call for his constant courage and audacity. In more normal times we may perhaps complain of his occasional fits of overenthusiasm or overdespondency, albeit he has in general an uncanny way of correctly forecasting values. But we have and will invariably rely upon his courage

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