What Happened to Liquidity When World War I Shut the NYSE?

The suspension of trading on the New York Stock Exchange for more than four months following the outbreak of World War I fostered a substitute market on New Street as a source of liquidity. The New Street market suffered from impaired price transparency because its transactions were not disseminated on the NYSE ticker and its quotations were blacklisted at the leading newspapers. This paper shows that despite the incomplete information flow and the somewhat wider bid-ask spreads compared with the New York Stock Exchange, New Street offered economically meaningful liquidity services. The interference with price transparency turned an individual stock’s reputation for liquidity into an important added variable in explaining the structure of bid-ask spreads on New Street

Why Did FDR’s Bank Holiday Succeed?

After a month-long run on American banks, Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed a Bank Holiday beginning March 6, 1933 that shut down the banking system. When banks reopened on March 13, 1933, depositors stood in line to return their hoarded cash. This paper traces the remarkable turnaround in the public’s confidence to the Emergency Banking Act, passed by Congress on March 9, 1933. Roosevelt used the emergency currency provisions of the Act to prod the Federal Reserve to create de facto deposit insurance in the reopened banks. The contemporary press confirms that the public recognized the implicit guarantee, and as a result, believed the President’s words in his first Fireside Chat on March 12, 1933, that the reopened banks would be safe. The public responded by returning more than half of their hoarded cash to the banks within two weeks and by bidding up stock prices on March 15, 1933, the first trading day after the Bank Holiday ended, by the largest ever one-day percentage price increase. The Bank Holiday and the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 reestablished the integrity of the payments system and demonstrated the power of credible regime-shifting policies

WHAT HAPPENED TO LIQUIDITY WHEN WORLD WAR I SHUT THE NYSE?

The suspension of trading on the New York Stock Exchange for more than four months following the outbreak of World War I fostered a substitute market on New Street as a source of liquidity. The New Street market suffered from a lack of price transparency because its transactions were not disseminated on the NYSE ticker and its quotations were blacklisted at the leading newspapers. This paper shows that despite the impaired information flow and the somewhat wider bid-ask spreads compared with the New York Stock Exchange, New Street offered economically meaningful liquidity services. The absence of price transparency turned an individual stock’s reputation for liquidity into an important variable in explaining the structure of bid-ask spreads on New Stree

The Great Financial Crisis of 1914: What Can We Learn from Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency?

At the outbreak of World War I, the biggest gold outflow in a generation posed a doublebarreled threat to American finance: An internal drain of currency from the banking system and an external drain of gold to Europe. The Federal Reserve System, newly authorized by Congress on December 23, 1913, remained on the sidelines during the summer of 1914, a victim of political and administrative delays. The absence of an operational central bank encouraged Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo to improvise the modern principle of aiming an independent weapon at each policy target. He employed a form of capital controls to deal with the external threat, shutting the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for more than four months to prevent Europeans from selling their American securities and demanding gold in return. And he invoked the emergency currency provisions of the Aldrich-Vreeland Act to deal with the internal threat, allowing banks to issue national bank notes, an important form of currency in pre-Federal Reserve days, without the normal requirement that the currency be secured by U.S. goverment bonds

On the Nature of Trading: Do Speculators Leave Footprints?

The paper describes how two types of traders, marketmakers and speculators, establish their positions and manage their risk exposure. We show that balance sheets are insufficient to determine whether a trader is a marketmaker or a speculator. On the other hand, trading records describing the evolution of a position over time can identify what trading strategy was pursued. Knowing the trading strategy helps to evaluate contract compliance, risk exposure, and capital requirements of trading firms. Understanding and verifying trader behavior is especially important because leveraged trading firms, and individual traders, have traditional incentives to mask their risk-taking activities. Without proper monitoring, traders can substitute risky speculation for less risky marketmaking to reap potential payoffs

Birth of the Federal Reserve: Crisis in the Womb

The outbreak of World War I shut the New York Stock Exchange for more than four months. The conventional explanation maintains that the closure prevented a collapse in stock prices that threatened a repetition of the Panic of 1907. This paper shows that the Wilson Administration encouraged the suspension of trading to pave the way for launching the Federal Reserve System, which was in the process of being born. Closing the Exchange helped to forestall an outflow of gold. Federal Reserve insiders considered an adequate stock of gold crucial to the success of the new monetary system

BIRTH OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE: CRISIS IN THE WOMB

The outbreak of World War I shut the New York Stock Exchange for more than four months. The conventional explanation maintains that the closure prevented a collapse in stock prices that threatened a repetition of the Panic of 1907. This paper shows that the Wilson Administration encouraged the suspension of trading to pave the way for launching the Federal Reserve System, which was in the process of being born. Closing the Exchange helped to forestall an outflow of gold. Federal Reserve insiders considered an adequate stock of gold crucial to the success of the new monetary system

WHAT HAPPENED TO LIQUIDITY WHEN WORLD WAR I SHUT THE NYSE?

The suspension of trading on the New York Stock Exchange for more than four months following the outbreak of World War I fostered a substitute market on New Street as a source of liquidity. The New Street market suffered from a lack of price transparency because its transactions were not disseminated on the NYSE ticker and its quotations were blacklisted at the leading newspapers. This paper shows that despite the impaired information flow and the somewhat wider bid-ask spreads compared with the New York Stock Exchange, New Street offered economically meaningful liquidity services. The absence of price transparency turned an individual stock’s reputation for liquidity into an important variable in explaining the structure of bid-ask spreads on New Street

Birth of the Federal Reserve: Crisis in the Womb

The outbreak of World War I shut the New York Stock Exchange for more than four months. The conventional explanation maintains that the closure prevented a collapse in stock prices that threatened a repetition of the Panic of 1907. This paper shows that the Wilson Administration encouraged the suspension of trading to pave the way for launching the Federal Reserve System, which was in the process of being born. Closing the Exchange helped to forestall an outflow of gold. Federal Reserve insiders considered an adequate stock of gold crucial to the success of the new monetary system

The Great Financial Crisis of 1914: What Can We Learn from Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency?

At the outbreak of World War I, the biggest gold outflow in a generation posed a doublebarreled threat to American finance: An internal drain of currency from the banking system and an external drain of gold to Europe. The Federal Reserve System, newly authorized by Congress on December 23, 1913, remained on the sidelines during the summer of 1914, a victim of political and administrative delays. The absence of an operational central bank encouraged Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo to improvise the modern principle of aiming an independent weapon at each policy target. He employed a form of capital controls to deal with the external threat, shutting the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for more than four months to prevent Europeans from selling their American securities and demanding gold in return. And he invoked the emergency currency provisions of the Aldrich-Vreeland Act to deal with the internal threat, allowing banks to issue national bank notes, an important form of currency in pre-Federal Reserve days, without the normal requirement that the currency be secured by U.S. goverment bonds