The Stock Exchange (1500-1815)

A lthough there is no essential difference between the Stock Exchange and any other market, there does arise, at a very early stage in the evolution of the market, a distinction which ultimately splits the institution into two well-defined portions, the one being concerned with the commodities themselves and the other only with titles to them or interests in them. The commodity market has evolved into the modern shop and store, as well as into the huge municipal building, where traders assemble either constantly or on an agreed day. The other market, being a place where titles or claims to money or commodities, or to present or future interests in them, and not the commodities themselves, are sold, is now centralised in the money market and the stock exchanges. If we take a chose in action 1 to be (as originally it certainly was) a thing recoverable by action, as contrasted with a chose in possession (which represents ownership and possession combined), it becomes apparent that the Stock Exchange is a specialised market for choses in action, 2 and to interests in them or 143 possibly arising out of them. The conception of the market for choses in action becomes still more refined if we remember that a shareholder’s right to .his proportion of a declared dividend is a separate chose in action from his shares upon which such dividend is declared. 1 Even more gossamery yet is the distinction, ultimately to be discussed, between choses in action backed by subjective and objective rights respectively.