The world of finance can, on occasion, involve us in the highest calling. From time to time we have had the opportunity to influence society in a favorable way.
‘Markets are about movements of prices, about groups of people interacting, about competition, about information, about fear, greed, belief,' he went on. ‘All these things are studied in detail by a range of academic disciplines, each of which can give you an insight into why the market behaves the way it does.'
The stock price is derivative of performance in the marketplace and not something you act on with financial engineering.
... that's the beauty of finance, it's all things to all men. In some it brings out the Newton, in others Beethoven, in still others Napoleon.
Wall Street is the unrepentant bastion of one form of segregation. A privileged minority deals constantly with asset allocation, cash flows and leverage. The toiling masses farther down the pyramid contemplate high finance once a month, when their bills arrive.
[I]f one thing is certain in finance and banking it is that memories are shorter than a pair of hotpants.
1998, p. 132
This year, I think I'll have a more subdued (Halloween) costume.
Maybe I'll dress up as a large piece of lumber and carry around a cardboard
box labeled "Interest Rates," and every few steps, maybe I'll drop
it. Get it? It's the Federal Reserve Board! Dropping interest rates! Ha ha!
Dave Barry
October 28, 2001
If you're an average layperson, your grasp of high finance consists of knowing your ATM code.
Dave Barry
February 3, 2002
You saw the resentment in Kaplan's eyes. At the time, Kaplan had begged Bo for the two hundred million to help his fund stay afloat. Now Kaplan would never forgive Bo for Warfield's three-hundred-million-dollar profit. But that was the way of the financial world. People forgot the favor, but they never forgot the profit. Particularly when they had lost it.
Stephen Frey
The Day Trader
New York: Fawcett Books (2001)
p. 208
What's good about finance is that it lubricates the machinery of capitalism.
John Bogle
Journal of Indexes
Fourth Quarter, 2003, p. 41
Last updated: January 9, 2011