On Mar 23, 2009, at 3:09 PM, moose at riseup.net wrote:
> So over the years I've heard from various secondhand sources the
> "fact"
> that the majority of all that volume traded on wall street is merely
> speculative, rather than real wealth (i.e., wealth that is immediately
> used to build capacity, buy machines, build factories, etc).
I haven't updated my stats in a few years, but between 1970 and 2006, proceeds of initial public stock offerings totaled 2.3% of nonresidential fixed investment. At the peak of the dot.com mania in 1999, it was 5.6%. The dollar volume of new issues in 1999 was $63 billion. By contrast, the dollar volume of trading just on the NYSE on 3/20 was $66 billion. I.e., an average day's trading just on the NYSE is bigger than the all-time high in IPO volume. So, no comparison.
Doug