INDEX	Friday January 15, 2021
1929 and all that!
In the 1920s (we used to call them the twenties but not any more) one sign that the stock exchange was about to collapse as it did in 1929, wiping out many great names such as Boris Johnson's hero Winston Churchill, was that your barber or taxi driver suddenly became a share tipper. The stock exchange was thought to be a perpetual source of growing wealth (a sort of money machine) and everyone wanted to get into the act. So the latest edition of The Economist, the international bible for all those with a serious interest in money, is trully chilling. "Technology has made access to financial markets ever easier for small investors," it says. "Equity options are like bucket-shop bets. Institutional investors are increasingly being drawn in to act as bookmakers. One way or another, everybody is an options trader now." You have been warned.
	Posted by Jonathan Brind.
INDEX
Friday January 15, 2021