Historical Thought for the Day
April 7, 2010
Thought for the day:
In the field of investment management, nearly all of those experts whom we identify as stars prove to be comets. Rather than being eternal beacons of light, most managers live a transitory existence, illuminating the financial firmament for but a brief moment in time, only to flame out, their ashes drifting gently down to earth. Of course, some outstanding managers remain, but history tells us that they are the exception that proves the rule.
–John C. Bogle, "The Stock Market Universe-Stars, Comets, and the Sun," speech, February 15, 2001, http://www.vanguard.com/bogle_site/february152001.html
This day in financial history:
1927: In history's first public television broadcast, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, speaking from an office in Washington, D.C., is viewed by a dumbstruck audience in the Bell Telephone Laboratories at 55 Bethune Street in New York City. "Human genius has now destroyed the impediment of distance in a new respect, and in a manner hitherto unknown," intones Hoover. "What its uses may finally be no one can tell." The New York Times, however, warns in its headline: "COMMERCIAL USE IN DOUBT."
Source: The New York Times, "Far Off Speakers Seen as Well as Heard Here in a Test of Television," April 8, 1927, p. 1, in Floyd Norris and Christine Bockelmann, The New York Times Century of Business (McGraw-Hill, New York, 2000), pp. 68-71; http://www.research.att.com/history/27tv.html
1979: Venture capitalist Robert Swanson and biochemist Herbert Boyer found Genentech, Inc. to develop new drugs by manipulating the molecular structure of DNA. They call their new firm a "biotechnology" company.
Source: Financial Times, April 6, 2001, p. 11; http://www.gene.com/gene/about/corporate/history/
1999: Online traders spot a Bloomberg News Service page reporting the news that PairGain Technologies has agreed to be acquired by ECI Telecom at a rich premium over its current stock price. PairGain stock promptly soars 31%, then crashes as PairGain and Bloomberg announce that the news page is a fraudulent announcement cleverly designed to look like a genuine Bloomberg news report.
Source: http://www.thestreet.com/tech/internet/736778.html; http://www.thestreet.com/comment/wrongrear/734031.html; http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr16266.htm
Source: Jason Zweig
