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.

588 APPENDIX as an indoor securities exchange; and (3) the extension of the security business of legititnate brokerage firms, and especially of Stock Exchange firms. CHAPTER V Security Speculation—Its Benefits and Dangers (Va) Professor H. C. Emery, of Yale, defined speculation in the following terms: “In the first place, it is well to recognize what we mean by speculation. The simplest definition is that speculation consists in buying and selling commodities or securities with an idea of making profits out of fluctuating values. Why do such fluctuations occur? Simply because the conditions of supply and demand are always chang- ing. It is the exception rather than the rule for any article of com- merce or any piece of property to maintain a perfectly stable price. Since the demand of society is constantly changing, values must con- stantly fluctuate, and, as long as values fluctuate, speculation must take place. It is not conceivable that, in a system of buying and selling such as we have, values could go up and down without somebody being benefited or injured, or without men consciously attempting to secure the benefit or avoid the injury by their purchases and sales. Speculation has always existed wherever buying and selling has ex- isted—ever since the days when Joseph cornered the grain supply of Egypt as reported in the book of Genesis. As long as private owner- ship of property is allowed and the value of property varies, specula- tion will continue. . . . “Some people speak as if all dealing in securities should be of a pure investment nature. Khey fail to realize, however, that invest- ments themselves become speculative in proportion as speculation pure and simple is abolished. Investment means primarily the purchase of income-yielding property in order to get an annual income, rather than to make profits from the fluctuations in capital value; but since capital value does fluctuate, investment involves the risk of loss, and _. . this risk of loss to the conservative investor is made very much less when he has an active speculative market for the disposal of his property. “Still another distinction that must be made is that between specu- lation and gambling. In the broadest sense, of course, there is a gambling element, not only in all bets, but in all our activities. If gambling means simply the taking of unreasonable risks, almost every act of our lives might be accused of having a gambling element by

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