This Week In Wall Street History: October 18th
Oct. 18 - Cackling, “Whoever has the most when he dies, wins,” Danny DeVito’s market-driven, corporate-raider character, Lawrence “The Liquidator” Garfield, lit up screens in the dark comedy, “Other People’s Money,” released this week in 1991.
The plot, based on a bitterly satiric, off-Broadway play, has tough-guy Garfield prowling for the next big score. He soon focuses his energies on a family-owned, profitable corporation with a money-losing subsidiary, New England Wire and Cable, run by the elder “Jorgy” Andrew Jorgenson (Gregory Peck), an old-school patriarch more concerned with factory workers’ well-being than pure shareholder profits. “The Liquidator” soon meets a credible opponent, however, when Jorgenson’s loyal assistant’s daughter/lawyer, Kate (Penelope Ann Miller), is brought on-board to help him fight the hostile takeover.
Many scenarios of one-upmanship, and then mutual attraction, hilariously and deviously come into play. Eventually, Garfield moves in for the score during a climatic Capra-esque stockholders’ shoot-out. His dilemma of choosing money or love is resolved, for it’s his nature not to mismanage “other people’s money.”
Oct. 23 – After the devastating and expensive Civil War, the newly re-United States of America steamrolled back to financial boom times. By the late 1860’s, capital investments in railroads and infrastructure were soaring off the charts resulting in the New York Stock Exchange taking the bull by its horns and, for the first time, opening up memberships for sale, in 1868.
Prior to salable seats, members had the extraordinary right to lifetime appointments. From specific, pre-assigned chair locations on the second-floor board room of the NYSE’s first permanent building, members politely called out security prices a gentlemanly three times daily.
But trading volume escalated, and by May 1869, membership numbers (now fixed) practically doubled to 1,060 (via a merger with two competitors) to handle the flow. And as technological innovations (stock tickers and the trans-Alantic cable) sped up executions, the exchange smartly embraced modern day realities.
Seats could now be bought and sold in an auction system with initial prices ranging from $4,000 to $8,000, reflecting that period’s market optimism. Soon, other milestones were implemented. Mandatory rules requiring official registration of securities by NYSE-listed companies were instituted in 1869, and continuous trading finally replaced the inadequate call system in 1871.
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