Posts Tagged ‘stock ticker’
“There was so much more going on than any one person could know, reality was so much bigger than the self, that it was alarming to contemplate”*…
Henry Oliver on The Panic of 1825 and the ways in which it modeled crises to come and shaped the modern world…
… the Panic of 1825… wasn’t like panics of the past. There was no external cause of this bubble — no war, no weather, no pandemic. It was not a speculative mania. It took place in many fragmented investments — loans, insurance policies — made by individuals, often in good faith, in the new economic system. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Britain had introduced a new gold standard. To avoid a sudden stop in loans and note issues (after running the war on cheap money) the Bank designed a transition. First, they hoarded gold like Smaug, to keep prices high and prevent a run. Second, they brought out new low-yield stocks. Third, the government issued new bonds and started a big infrastructure programme. With all the extra money in the system, backed by gold, people started investing, post-war prosperity flourished, and George IV could yap complacently about the success of the economy. Now that gold payments resumed, the market for precious metals boomed. Hence all those investments in South American gold mines. That all sent capital overseas, and so the currency was becoming, in reality, a paper system. Letters and warnings were published in The Times, but all in vain. And so when the bank drew in its horns, the crash was inevitable.
This wasn’t, then, a rampant speculative bubble. It was a diversification crisis. So many people invested in so many different things and none of them knew enough about the rest. Many investments were sound. Many participants were not speculators. “The fundamental problem in the market,” as one scholar has written, “was not that investors were over-extending themselves but rather that they did not have enough information to appreciate how over-extended everyone else already was.” After the crash, the finance system started to be centralised, to avoid such situations in the future.
1825 is known as the first modern financial crisis. No single group could be blamed for what happened. It was a systemic event. It demonstrated, quite firmly, that there is no place or person at the centre of things, no-one who runs the market. 1825 was, in some senses, the year the modern economy started. But it wasn’t just in economics that 1825 changed the world. Politics and literature were reinvigorated too…
More (including the role of Disraeli) at “1825: the first modern financial crisis,” from @HenryEOliver.
[Image above: source]
* Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future
###
As we ponder precedent, we might recall that it was on this date in 1867 that the first stock ticker was introduced.
The advent of the ticker ultimately revolutionized the stock market by making up-to-the-minute prices available to investors around the country. Prior to this development, information from the New York Stock Exchange, which has been around since 1792, traveled by mail or messenger.
The ticker was the brainchild of Edward Calahan, who configured a telegraph machine to print stock quotes on streams of paper tape (the same paper tape later used in ticker-tape parades). The ticker, which caught on quickly with investors, got its name from the sound its type wheel made.
History
Calahan’s ticker (source)
Tempting one’s inner-civil-engineer…
Recently returned from a quick visit to the incandescent oasis that is Las Vegas, your correspondent wishes that he had discovered “The All-Inclusive All-You-Can-Eat Buffet Guide” before the trip.
A service of Eating the Road (“On a journey to find out what the American road tastes like”), the Guide is quite comprehensive: from preparation…
…Meals leading up to the buffet have been debated for ages. My recommendations are a large dinner the night before consisting mostly of light breads and vegetables to expand the stomach. It is also advantageous to drink plenty of liquids, preferably water. This also varies greatly on what time of day your buffet meal is going to be. For a breakfast buffet your larger meal should be the lunch prior with a small dinner. The morning of I would suggest a very small meal containing some sugar in order to get your metabolism up and running. Eat nothing more throughout the day. Liquids are advised, preferably water, as almost a mandatory health concern due to the high sodium content you are about to consume…
through strategy:
Initial scouting: This takes discipline and some patience but will pay off in the end. Be sure to walk the entire length of the buffet including the dessert area. Sometimes you’ll find hidden and unexpected items. Take note of all dishes that you would like to try. With knowledge of the layout and items at handle you can now plan your attack. Some things to consider on your first go around is what items have been freshly placed out and which will be available during your subsequent trips. Make note of the costliest items as well as the most popular.
Grab a dinner plate, this is a must, always use the largest plate they offer…
To “exit strategy”:
You’ll want to be sure that you have no further commitments for at least 3 hours…
With sections on Types of Buffets, Objective, Preparation, Location, Pre-meal Setup, Strategy, Etiquette, Exit Strategy and Post Game, it’s the Baedeker of buffets!
As we consider how to pay for our repasts, we might we might pause to honor the debut of the stock ticker, that auger of bulls and bears, which clacked for the first time on this date in New York City in 1867… In a scenario not unknown in these times, the ticker was created by Edward Callahan, who rigged a telegraph to print stock (and gold) prices on streaming paper tape. But only two years later, Thomas Edison (who had been, we might recall, a telegraph operator) patented a slightly modified version, closed Callahan out of the market, and made his first fortune– the one that financed his laboratory in Menlo Park… from whence the stream of inventions for which Edison is remembered, along with the accompanying stream of patent litigations that generated dominance of one market after another.
Callahan’s Stock Ticker (source: Early Office Museum)
You must be logged in to post a comment.