But in general these have been blips in an otherwise relentless rise. Or, for that matter, any amount of other shares such as BP Amoco, Cable and Wireless, or from across the pond, Microsoft. But, of course, markets change, like everything else. The era of fixed interest securities gave way in the 1950s to that of equities. More recently the derivatives market of options and futures has grown exponentially with the demand for newer ways of hedging risk.
Themes come and go.
Value versus growth investing. The rise and fall of cyclical stocks. And nowadays the need to surf the Net. All is backed by theory. Academics and practitioners alike continue to grapple with the concept of market efficiency or the Black Scholes model for options pricing.