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Swiss Stock Exchange History

In the seven years since the publication of the primary edition of Wall Street, America's financial industry has undergone a series of wrenching events that have dramatically changed the nation's economic landscape. The bull market of the 1990's came to a close, ushering in the end of the dot com boom, a record number of mergers occurred, and accounting scandals in companies like Enron and WorldCom shook the financial industry to it is core.
In this wide-ranging volume, financial historian Charles Geisst provides the original history of Wall Street, explaining how a small, concentrated pocket of lower Manhattan came to have such enormous influence in national and world affairs. In this modified edition, Geisst sums up the recent turbulence that has threatened America's financial industry. He shows how in 1997 thirty NASDAQ market manufacturers remunerated a record $1.3 billion fine for price irregularities in stocks. He makes sense of the closing of the bull market, and explains a major alter in the accounting rules for mergers that caused monumental losses for companies like AOL Time Warner. And he recounts how in the aftermath of the speculative fever that swept Wall Street in the 1990's, the scandals at Enron, Tyco, Worldcom, and Conseco represent a last gasp of mergermania and a fallout from a bubble-like market.
Wall Street is at once the story of the street itself, from the days when the wall was plainly a defensive barricade built by Peter Stuyvesant, to the innovative billion-dollar computer-driven colossus of today. In a broader sense it is an engaging economic history of the United States, the role Wall Street played in making America the most powerful economy in the world, and the some challenges to that role it has faced in recent years.

"A quick-reading history of the United States as told through the doings of bankers and brokers."--The Washington Post

"Geisst has formulated a sweeping history of Wall Street, from it is inception as an outdoor market to it is current status of global financial center.... This lively narrative is a good survey of American economic history that puts Wall Street at the forefront."--History

"An important and agreeably diverting commentary for anybody fascinated in understanding the role of Wall Street in the development of the U.S. into an economic superpower."--James R. Barth, Lowder Eminent Scholar in Finance, Auburn University

About the Author
Charles R. Geisst is Professor of Finance in the School of Business, Manhattan College, and author of Wheels of Fortune and Deals of the Century.

Most helpful client reviews

13 of 13 humans found the following review helpful.
Comprehensive book on the history of Wall Street
By Rolf Dobelli
This comprehensive book provides a wealth of detail regarding the origins and history of the financial institutions, private and public, that underpin Wall Street and the economy of the United States - and therefore, to an extent, much of the rest of the world. Author Charles R. Geisst presents a elaborated discussion of the contest among the forces of libertarianism and regulation. Detail is both the strength and the weakness of this book. Often, the author has disturb organizing it all, and the book would have benefited from a stricter editor to help distill the "story" in this history. Despite such problems, however, the factual basis is rich and intriguing. We believe that readers mesmerized in U.S. financial history, in particular those in the investment and financial services industries, will want to read this book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Good overview of Wall Street
By MedStudent
Mark Twain said that history does not repeat itself but it does rhyme. Read this book and learn regarding the past market panics and irrational exuberances. The early history is kind of arid but things get finelooking interesting once you break into the 20th century. What stands out altho it is not surprising is how the public makes the same faults over and over again. I guess one may only describe it as the extraordinary delusion of crowds.

1 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
Completely inaccurate in regards to the current downturn
By K. Majarrez
The book provides some clear or deep perception into forgotten economic events, but I'll bet the author didn't believe Lehman would fail, nor the "panic" that since has transpired in America.

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