The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-11-08 00:00:00

THE DAILY SHARE LIST.

The Time Of Monday hes the following eiltnie on "The
D. 117 dhefe Lion," which will Inissest, end perhaps edify,
fuol of oat readere:—

Saturday was a holyday on the Stock Exchange, and, I
therefore, the daily Stock and Share List wh!ch is to
many of our readers the moat interesting portion of ths
morning's paper, does nrt appear in our impression of
t°4l4Y. lii, essay to understand the keen interest with
which it is perused. The trader or professional man who
has retire 1 from business end hoe invested his savinge
e tempting, but somewhat doubtful security, watches
with Pa_rdonable anxiety the changing quotations which
ina7 kdorm him either that he has done well and in
safe for the time being or that he and his family are on
the high road to beggary. The speculator will regard
the PON figures with an even more eager concern. He
km made, we will suppose, a time bargain; in other
Irord.4 he ham laid a bet of uncertain amount that some
ttln-sd Stock or other will have risen or fallen in value
b 7 e certain fixed day. He has, perhaps, sold shares
be. aatktpation, not holding any of what he has pro-
'mod to part with. but believing that they were likely
to fell In prise, ana that be would be able to buy than

beak for We money before the Bottling Day had arrived.
Or he may have bought shares., not wishing to keep them
as his own, but thinking they would rise, and that he
would be able to sell them again at once, and to put
the difference in his own pocket. To such persons the
rise or fell of the securities in which they dabble is a
matter of immediate and vital importance. It may
tell them that their wager—for it is nothing else—ia
likely to be profitable, or it may disclose to them the
certainty of serious loam for which they have made
no provision.

The contents of the Share Ltd form now a regular
increasing
the day's news, and the List itself is constantly
in length and 'substance and complexity.
Few are aware hew very recent is the whole system it
represents, At the beginning of the present century the
daily List was • thing absolutely unknown. It appears
fins as a modest and occasional notice of • dozen or so
public loans and compsniee. It attain,' next the dignity
and importance eta daily insertion, but its contents are
subetantlaily unchain • A few British and • few
foreign Govenament Stocks, differing strangely in value
from the prices they would now command and one or
two Banks and Mines, are pretty nearly all that it re-
corded, and they represent pretty nearly all the choices
then presented for investment. The first great im-
pulse was at the time of the well-known railway mann.
Next came the Joint.Sto,k Companies Acts, with
their provision, fatal to so many, for securing limited
liability, and of ware* adding enormously to the
number of our "Miscellaneous Securities." The
growth of the Share List since then has been steady
and rapid. But if those who look now upon its three
ample and well filled columns wish to realize the
slender choice offered to our fathers, they must strike
out first about • column and a half that has to do
only with Railways and Telegraphs; they must omit
next those Foreign Stocks which have only lately been
created, and must leave only the dozen or so which in
some form or another have been long domiciled on our
shores; they must lastly leave out all but about one in
twenty of the Minot, Banks, and Miscellaneous Se.
curities. The diranken result, three or four inches ,
in its total length, will give the Share List as
It first appeared before the public. The change
daring the present century has been the, as
we have said, partly to changes in our laws, and
partly to one industrial developments. The recent
Companies Acts have tempted investment by securing
Investors against the old danger of unlimited partner-
ship in a concern which might any day be bankrupt.
The new natural forces which have been discovered,
and the new applications of old forces, combined with
, an accumulation of capital and with • freer intercourse
' with distant lands, have contributed in another way to
bring about the name result. 'I he consequence is that
money which was once placed in the Funds or lent out
on mortgage is now boldly risked in any one of hun-
dreds of new undertaking!. A development of Minas
or Railways in South America, a pressure of cre-
ditors in Turkey, a new commercial impulse in
Japan, tend all of them to the same uniform result.
Whoever wishes' to borrow money comes natu-
rally to the London Stock Exchange, and endea-
, yours to get his schemes floated. The lengthening of
our daily List shows how often the endeavour is suc-
cessful. The quotations prove naturally the very
I varying profits with which such projects have been
conducted. Some stand at a good premium' and re-
present sound government or well managed private
industries. Others, by their low figures, tell the tale
of public or private nftligenee, or miscalculation, or
dishonesty. Some, finally, have disappeared altogether,
and have too often carded their unhappy holden with
themselves to the abyss of ruin.
To those who watch the Share Lid from one day to
another the cause of its fluctuations is a matter of daily
remark and Interest, Stocks which stand high in price
or which bring in very large annual returns of proht or
Interest suddenly and inexplicably 'shrink from three
figures or two, and frem two still lower. By and
by the cause will be known, but its early
knowledge Is given only to initiated. The
outer world hears nothing of it until its full effect has
already been produced. Private holders have mean-
while, been uncertain whether the rise or fill they
observed represented any real change of value, or
was due simply to the familliar proems of "rigging
the market. There are few departments of busi-
ness in which the difference between the inside and
outside world is drawn more sharply than on the
Stuck-Exchange. Its transactions are printed se.
veral times in the day, and there is altogether an
appearance of openness in its proceedings which will
prove on investigation to be in great part fallacious.
Some quotations, for example, are wholly fictitious,
and are well known to be so by those who are within
the charmed cirole. The figures given will have
produced their effect when they have induced the
public to fined money on the faith of the value
they are supposed to represent. Most new
c. mpaniee, t 0,,, pan regularly through sec !naive
stages of publicity, until their shares are at length dealt
in as bond pu' lic securities. Let us iroppose, for
example, that • new gold mine is to be brought out.
Toe mine is first boeght by an agent from its, probably,
American owners, or, more frequently, the terms of
purchase are arranged and the right of concluding the
bargain is left open for a stated period. The agent
meanwhile endeavours to find English iurchaeern. If
he is fortunate enough to succeed, a syndicate as it is
termed, is formed of those who are to deal directly with
him, or through him with the owners. The gentle-
men who compose it subscribe among themselves the
neceseary capital, and arrange to pay the price agreed,
partly in cash, but chiefly in shared of the new com-
pany. When things have gone thus far, circulars are
sent round and the rover public is invited to j An the
undertaking. Those who comply with the invitation
will receive really somewhat less favourable terms that
the members of the syndicate, who find their account
in a private arrangement with the vendors, and, in
fact, pay less for the mine than the sum stated in
their circular. Sometime*, of course, these concerns
will pats thrmght several further stages before tie
outer world iv admitted. But the case supposed is
one of the fairest and most favourab'e. If the
mine is a really emit d property, its shares will very
well sten(' all the ordinary process of watering." If
It is ansouni, it Li clearly unimportant what private ar-
rangements the syndicate may have made for securing
themselves bonus privileges, Not untrequently, of
course, the property is in neither extreme of soundness
or unsoundness, and it pays some profit for working,
but not enough to carry all the weight of nominal
capital which has been added gradually to the purchase-
money originally paid. Where this is the cam the in-
vestors will suffer, bat they could hardly have ex-
pected to carry on, with any certainty of profit, • bud-
sees affair with the details of which they had not made
themeless acquainted.
The great increase in the number of modern Indus-
tries and the vast additional capital which is continually
seeking employment have done much to make new
forms of investment popular. The old saying that
high interest means bad security does not, by any
means, command a general acceptance. Stated shoo-
solutely, it is, no doubt, untrue. There are plenty of
concerns which will yield a return which will be at
once large and safe; but the practical difficulty will
remain, by what means are they to be Alain-
guiehed ? For moat men, no doubt, who have no
great leisure and no special opportunity • low
interest is all that can be expected, and it would be
the height of imprudence for them to risk their
capital in the hope of adding to their inceme. For
those who ,are careful not to put all their eggs, as
the phrase is, into one basket, the higher interest will
be secured, and the danger of total lose will be dimi-
nished, but the certainty of some lom or other will be
greater than before. The one result, probably, will
about balance the other, and the year's income, after a
difficult and anxious process, will be no more than what
might have been attained more readily by investing in
the Three per Cents. To those who like the excite-
ment of possible loss and gain, and have leisure enough
to attend to the constant changes of the market,
this will be no objection. They will have had their
year's amusement, and it will have cost them nothing;
but for busy men or for men who cannot afford to stand
a temporary lose anything is better than • large Lumber
of somewhat hazardous enterprises. It is said to be
quite possible under good advice, to secure 5 per cent.
on unimpeachable security, but that anything more
than that Must be obtained, in ordinary case., by an
increased risk of capital. A truth like this may be re-
cognized by competent judges, but there will always
be plenty in spite of it who will have the full
courage cf their opinions, and will place their money
up and down the Share List in any undertaking
the title or prospects of which they may happen to
think encouraging. It is, of course, exceedingly
likely that money so risked will prove to have been
simply thrown away, but each new investor will
learn this only by his own experience. None, it
has been remarked, are to venturesome as those
who can least afford the loss they will probably eon-
lain. Widows and country clergymen have a bold-
ness in money matters which define all ordinary cisl-
°lllations, and they face with a good heart and with
confident anticipations prospects at which many a
veteran on the Stock Exchange would be driven to
despair or suicide. The ruin of c hrse cornea and
the case is heard of for awhile, and is then forgotten
and repeated. High interest, it may be safely
said, means bad security in ninety-nine cases out of
a hundred, where the interest itself goes beyond a
certain point, or the investment chosen has no I been
properly recommended. Toe getting a h;gber return
tor our money is one of the many points it which we
bast ourselves better than our fathers. We have oar-
tally a better opportui•y and a wider and more tempt-
ing choice, but It may well be doubted whether, in
spite of the enormous fortunes which have been made
legitimately on the Stock-Exchange, an almost equal
amount has not been wasted through sheer ignorance,
or lost by fraud, or sunk hopelessly in concerns which
never, from the moment they were started, had the re-
moteet prospect of succees.