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 XV. The commission house

Collection:: Economics Books

413 The Romance of Gauging the Future.—There are few more fascinating aspects of the modern business world than that revealed to the thoughtful spectator of the stock board. As one sits in the customer’s chair, he is, through the news ticker, placed automatically in touch with the latest news of the world—news which the linotype batteries of the great metropolitan papers have not yet even started to cast into columns and pages. But the stock board itself goes even this instantaneous news service one better, for the ever-restless and ever-changing security prices which it records are the estimates in dollars and cents of future rather than present conditions in the whole country’s industry and trade. The hopes, the fears, the aspirations, and dreams and dreads of the whole nation thus find an expression here in the ceaseless fluctuations of stock prices. The sheer romance of this constant attempt to discount the future which causes much of the price fluctuation in speculative stocks makes a particularly strong appeal to the imaginative mind, for the thoughtful student of modern society and civili- zation can see in it the true significance of the stock market as a barometer of the future. Many hard-headed American busi- ness men who never engage in marginal transactions in securi- ties, nevertheless follow the course of stock market prices very closely in order to foresee the probable future tendencies of their own particular business. But the commission broker, being of necessity an eminently practical man, can scarcely be expected to maintain expensive offices, engage numerous highly trained technical employees, buy a Stock Exchange seat, obtain extensive credit facilities at the banks, and undergo constant business risks, merely for the philosophic pleasure of furnishing amusement to day-dreaming students of industry and trade. Although brokers sometimes speculate in securities themselves, their business consists pri- marily in earning commissions on their customers’ orders. Let us see exactly how this is done. THE COMMISSION HOUSE

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