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21 Feb, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Financial History: Sunday Reads

• Electric Cars: 19th Century Tech

• Tech Revolutions: Bicycle Mania

• Startup Fraud & South Sea Bubble

• The Birth of Electric Cars

• The 17th Century Tech Bubble

[Repost - New posts next week!]

investoramnesia.com/2020/08/09/spe…
I think this is my favorite Sunday Reads of the last 2+ years
And if you’ve missed them until now, I’ve put out two articles in the last two weeks with a third dropping tomorrow.

1)

canvas.osam.com/Commentary/Blo…
2)

canvas.osam.com/Commentary/Blo…

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More from @InvestorAmnesia

Jamie Catherwood Profile picture
23 Feb
Thread on some of my favorite pieces from today's new post:

Technology & The Financial Printing Press

This thread will cover three main sections:

• The Printing Press

• Ticker Machines

• A 1930 Quant Fund

(1/25)

canvas.osam.com/Commentary/Blo…
(2/25)

The honorable @wolfejosh said on his podcast with @patrick_oshag :

"If you want change and progress, somebody's got to look at something and literally go back to those two words and say, what sucks? That sucks.

And then you have to be motivated to want change it."
(3/25)

What I find interesting is that while technology usually solves this "what sucks" problem...

It can often produce new headaches itself, requiring further improvements and augmentations...

One great example: The Printing Press Image
Read 25 tweets
Jamie Catherwood Profile picture
22 Nov 20
Financial History: Sunday Reads

• An Exciting Announcement

• The Bubble Triangle

• The First Bubble: New Evidence

• Speculative Finance: Cycle Mania

• Fraud & Financial Scandals

• Another 20's Bubble?

investoramnesia.com/2020/11/22/bub…
"Wall Street Bubbles; Always the Same"

(1901)
Blows my mind when people 100+ years ago say stuff like this, and nothing has changed.
Little things like this illustration just really demonstrate how little human nature changes over the course of centuries.

For all the progress we've made as a society, 100+ years ago people stated "every bubble is the same", and it still holds true.

Crazy!
Read 5 tweets
Jamie Catherwood Profile picture
10 Nov 20
Take the time to read this 1886 Economist piece. Trust me. (Seriously)

An all time favorite historical source I like to re-read.

Excellent insight into human nature via a description of the Guinness IPO in 1886, and investor mania.

Gem.
This writing...

"It was doo delightful; it was betting on a certainty, or subscribing to a lottery in which all the tickets were prizes...

The world which desires money, quickly and easily made - and that world is the largest of all - was stirred to its foundations."
"Experience of one generation seldom teaches another... not one business-man in three in the City of London could write out an outline history of the last [mania].

Experience will not prevent speculative manias any more than it will prevent ambitious wars..."
Read 5 tweets
Jamie Catherwood Profile picture
23 Aug 20
Financial History: Sunday Reads

• IPO Pricing: The Very Long Run

• Private Origins of Private Companies

• Why Go Public?

• Five Eras of Financial Markets

• Financial Innovation & Market Access

• Private Capital & Public Credit: Railways

investoramnesia.com/2020/08/23/the…
"Proportion held, in aggregate, by the Harvard, Princeton, and Yale endowments..."

(1900 - 2013)
Two awesome charts from some of today's papers:
Read 6 tweets
Jamie Catherwood Profile picture
9 Aug 20
Financial History: Sunday Reads

• Electric Vehicles: A 19th Century Innovation

• Tech Revolutions: Bicycle Mania

• Sketchy Startups & The South Sea Bubble

• The Birth of Electric Cars

• The 17th Century Tech Bubble

investoramnesia.com/2020/08/09/spe…
This made my week.

The Reddit post in the second picture is a *perfect* example of the speculative pattern I discuss in today's Sunday Reads...

And as a writer, there is nothing more satisfying than knowing your work resonated with someone.
Some "new" innovations that are actually a century old:

• Electric Taxi Cab Fleets in NYC (1897)

• Electric Trucks (1899)
Read 7 tweets
Jamie Catherwood Profile picture
26 Jul 20
Financial History: Sunday Reads

• A Short History of Tontines

• The Allure of Public Markets

• SPACs in the South Sea Bubble?

• The Birth of Investment Trusts

• Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction

investoramnesia.com/2020/07/26/fin…
Today's Sunday Reads covers the general history of financial contraptions, but specifically SPACs and Tontines.

I answer questions like why did Bill Ackman name his SPAC after a 17th century financial contraption described as:

"Part annuity, part mortality lottery"
Tontines are crucial to American history.

After signing the Buttonwood Agreement, the brokers needed a place to conduct business, and settled on a coffee shop.

A tontine financed construction of the "The Tontine Coffee House", which later evolved into the NYSE.
Read 4 tweets

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