Have been reading the first volume of David Kynaston's excellent history of the City of London, and was much taken by the following passage. Plus ca change, etc....
...Some of you gentlemen may have heard of the Argentine securities...they used at one time to stand in the prices 95 to 100, and in those days the great majority of stockbrokers to whom you spoke would tell you that they were the finest securities open for investment; certainly the very best 6% security that was ever introduced upon the market. And those same brokers, many of whom held arguments with me as to the sterling nature of those securities at about those prices of 95 to 100, when the prices went down to 30 to 40, told me that they ought to be sold, that they were thouroughly rotten, and that they ought never to have been introduced into the London market...
I have asked several of those gentlemen who took a particular interest in this stock, what they chanced to know about it and its intrinsic worth. "Do you happen to know anything about the resources of the Argentine Confederation ?" And their minds were an utter blank upon the subject. "Do you know what their population is, and what their sources of revenue might be ?" No answer could I get. "Could you point out on the map to me within 2000 or 3000 miles where the territory lies ?" And their minds were an utter blank; there was no answer. I state this as an absolute positive fact which has occurred within my own experience, and I should think amongst 20 or 30 different brokers....
- From evidence to the Royal Commission on the Stock Exchange ... 1877
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