New York Stock Exchange

“ A little gathering of men met under a buttonwood-tree in 1792, opposite what is now No. 60 Wall Street, and formed an association for the purpose of exchange and more ready current transaction of business. From this crude organization has grown the present New York Stock Exchange with its immense capital. Installed in a dignified edifice between Broad and New streets, with an entrance on Wall Street, its eleven hundred members transact business daily between 10 a.m. ”

“ The New York Stock Exchange is really the most important business organization in the United States, and probably combines in its membership more quick and ready intelligence, more personal honor in respect to the keeping of engagements, at whatever pecuniary sacrifice, without reference to legal liability or compulsion, and more liberality and generosity in business dealings than can be found among any equal number of men engaged in the pursuit of gain in any other business relation whatever. ”

“ Recent attacks upon the character of the New York Stock Exchange are entirely unjustified and have been prompted by either ignorance or prejudice. If the Stock Exchange were abolished great enterprises would soon be paralyzed. ”

“ One of the time-honored institutions of our land—one which has never ceased to be the centre of abuse—is the New York Stock Exchange. Here conspiracies are organized for robbing the poor and grinding the rich; so despicable and damnable that Society is appalled. ”

“ The New York Stock Exchange has distinguished itself in many respects, but there is probably nothing for which it is likely to become more famous in history than its solution of the great problem of settling disputes and misunderstandings by arbitration. ”

“ In past years when there were only a few listed securities it was possible for any well informed person in financial circles to tell the par value and the approximate book value of all the leading stocks, but the good old-fashioned methods are no longer in vogue; there are now 1,045 stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange alone, representing almost every imaginable industry, from steam locomotives to lunch counters, and under the new capital readjustment process it takes a professional statistician to keep up with the changes and determine what stocks are actually worth. ”

“ One broker after another is really nothing but a family investment agent. That is what it amounts to. There are railroad magnates, bankers, steel kings, copper kings and so on indefinitely. Hundreds of firms in the New York Stock Exchange are nothing but channels for the investment of accumulated wealth and I do not think we realize how much there is of that in this country. ”

“ Many of these so-called investment trusts accumulated thousands upon thousands of highly speculative common shares that paid less than 2% income on their market value. Indeed one day in September, 1929, a statistician figured that the twelve most active stocks on the New York Stock Exchange averaged a return of only one and three-fifths per cent. ”

“ The chance to buy a hundred shares of some stock, in London, for instance, and to sell it out at the same time in New York, at one-eighth or one-quarter more, is what the arbitrageurs are constantly on the lookout for. With the proper facilities, an expert, in the course of the hour during which the London and New York Stock Exchanges are simultaneously in session, is often able to put through a number of profitable trades. ”

“ Therefore, we say that promotion stocks should not be bought by the ordinary man who is looking for a good speculation, because his chances of making a large profit with a minimum risk are very much better when he buys stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange and uses good judgment in doing so. ”

“ A shrewd man, one of the old school of New York City wholesale merchants, who has nothing whatever to do with Wall Street or the Stock Exchange, yet whose trade arteries extend to many parts of the country, has long governed his business by the published reports of Stock Exchange transactions. If he sees there revealed a wholesome, normal, and conservative expansion in all lines of business and a money market that betrays no uneasiness as to the future, he presses on into new lines of endeavor, confident that the immediate future is serene. ”

“ The New York Stock Exchange is typical of most American stock exchanges, the leading ones of which are located in Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Salt Lake City, Denver, San Francisco and St. ”