Research Catalog

Title

The Merc : the emergence of a global financial powerhouse / Bob Tamarkin.

Author

Tamarkin, Bob.

Publication

New York : HarperBusiness, [1993], ©1993.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiii, 465 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates; 24 cm

Summary

• "The story of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is one of drama and vigor, shaped by major historical events and by characters charged with a spirit of survival. One of America's major business success stories as the world's leading financial futures and options exchange, no book has told its story until now."--BOOK JACKET.
• "The Merc is a first-time look inside this extraordinary institution, where the trading pits are a whirl of flailing hands, emotional highs and lows, and traders screaming buy and sell orders - the last bastion of free and untrammeled capitalism."--BOOK JACKET. "Established in 1919, by 1991 the Merc supported trading with an underlying value of approximately $50 trillion - almost forty times as much as the value of all equities traded on the New York Stock Exchange."--BOOK JACKET.
• "The roots of the Merc go back to 1873 and the Great Chicago Fire, when the city rose from the ashes to become the great commercial center it is today. But the road has not been without pitfalls. By the 1950s, the Merc was a faltering agricultural commodities exchange on the brink of extinction.
• In 1972, on the heels of the collapse of the Bretton Woods Agreement, the Merc created the International Monetary Market, which has played a vital role in helping businesses and individuals navigate the rocky shoals of world currency and financial markets."--BOOK JACKET.
• "Since then, the Merc has continued to pursue new directions. In 1980 it became the first American exchange to open a European office. In 1984 it followed up with trading links to the Singapore International Monetary Exchange and a Tokyo office - again a first - in 1987. Now it is leading the efforts to create twenty-four-hour international trading with its GLOBEX partnership."--BOOK JACKET.
• "In 1987 a turf war erupted between conservative Wall Street interests and Chicago's freewheeling futures exchanges. The Justice Department accused the Merc's traders of winking at widespread fraud, and the FBI infiltrated the Merc and the CBOT. But three years later, President Bush visited the exchanges and praised Chicago-style capitalism as the nation's best hope for the future and told the Merc's leaders that they should be "proud of this world leadership.""--BOOK JACKET.
• "Often shaken by war, depression, financial crisis, and even a 1958 congressional ban on trading in onions (then the Merc's number one commodity), the Merc has learned the art of survival and innovation and is a great American success story."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

• Commodity exchanges > Illinois > Chicago > History
• Chicago Mercantile Exchange History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 435-451) and index.

Contents

Pt. I. The Age of Enterprise (1850 to 1958). 1. The Gathering. 2. A Crossroads. 3. From Steerage to Storage. 4. The Street. 5. The Rise of the Butter-and-Egg Men. 6. The Birth of the Merc. 7. The Stormy Years. 8. The Winds of Change. 9. Oscar and the Old Guard. 10. The Onion Fiasco -- Pt. II. The Golden Age of Commodities (1959 to 1975). 11. Back to Eggs. 12. Inching Along. 13. Slicing the Bacon. 14. Futures on the Hoof. 15. The Palace Revolt. 16. Sir Francis Pork Belly. 17. Happy Fiftieth. 18. New Book, New Look. 19. Who Were We? 20. Making Allies. 21. Pounding the Pavement. 22. Still the Evangelists. 23. The Public Takes Notice -- Pt. III. The Age of Financial Instruments (1976 to 1992). 24. Spreading Its Wings. 25. Tangibles and Intangibles. 26. Good to the Last Drop. 27. Shaping the Mosaic. 28. Exporting the Evolution. 29. Seeds of Volatility. 30. The Crash. 31. The Sting. 32. Into the Nineties. 33. So Long Karl, Hello Adam.

ISBN

0887305164

LCCN

91031500

OCLC

ocm24375559

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries