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Crowds and Speculation: a Study of Crowd Phenomena in the U.S

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COPENHAGEN BUSINESS SCHOOL CROWDS AND SPECULATION: SOLBJERG PLADS 3 DK-2000 FREDERIKSBERG DANMARK WWW.CBS.DK ISSN 0906-6934 A STUDY OF CROWD PHENOMENA IN THE U.S. FINANCIAL MARKETS 1890 TO 1940 Print ISBN: 978-87-93579-24-8 Online ISBN: 978-87-93579-25-5 Kristian Bondo Hansen CROWDS AND SPECULATION: A STUDY OF CROWD PHENOMENA IN THE U.S. FINANCIAL MARKETS 1890 TO 1940 Doctoral School of Organisation and Management Studies PhD Series 26.2017 PhD Series 26-2017 Crowds and Speculation A study of crowd phenomena in the U.S. financial markets 1890 to 1940 Kristian Bondo Hansen Main supervisor: Professor Christian Borch of Copenhagen Business School Second supervisor: Senior Lecturer Peter Knight of The University of Manchester Doctoral school of Organisation and Management Studies Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy Copenhagen Business School Frederiksberg, 2017 Kristian Bondo Hansen Crowds and Speculation: A study of crowd phenomena in the U.S. financial markets 1890 to 1940 1st edition 2017 PhD Series 26-2017 © Kristian Bondo Hansen ISSN 0906-6934 Print ISBN: 978-87-93579-24-8 Online ISBN: 978-87-93579-25-5 The Doctoral School of Organisation and Management Studies (OMS) is an interdisciplinary research environment at Copenhagen Business School for PhD students working on theoretical and empirical themes related to the organisation and management of private, public and voluntary organizations. All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Til Frida 3 4 Acknowledgements This dissertation had never been written had it not been for the generous help from family, friends and colleagues. Though that is a cliché of an opening sentence, it is nevertheless true in this case. I would like to start out by thanking the three accomplished members of the dissertation committee for agreeing to read and evaluate my work. The committee consists of Senior Lecturer Liz McFall of The Open University, Senior Lecturer Paul Crosthwaite of The University of Edinburg and Professor Per H. Hansen of Copenhagen Business School. Secondly, I am tremendously grateful to my supervisor Professor Christian Borch, whose continuous support in academic as well as in personal matters has meant more to me than I think he knows. I also want to thank my second supervisor, Senior Lecturer Peter Knight of The University of Manchester. Although I have not drawn as much on Peter’s expertise as I inarguably should have, I have learned a lot from reading his thorough and absorbing historical work on financial markets. Additionally, I am thankful to Dolapo Adeniji-Neill, who invited me into her home in Saxtons River, Vermont, and allowed me assess to the papers of her late father-in-law, the Vermont Ruminator, Humphrey B. Neill. Ploughing through Neill’s unorganised stacks of books, magazines, periodicals and market newsletters greatly enhanced my interest in the particular kinds of texts that serve as the basis of the dissertation. I also have to thank Tim Vanech for getting me in touch with Dolapo and John and Carrol Wood for making my visit to Saxtons River extraordinarily pleasant. I furthermore want to thank Ann-Christina Lange, Thomas Presskorn-Thygesen and Marius Gudmand-Høyer for, each in their own way, helping the project along and for being as good colleagues as one can possibly have. Speaking of good colleagues, I also want to thank current and former colleagues from Copenhagen Business School and other universities, who have been willing to read and discuss my work as well as help me out as I encountered problems during the process. Among the people to whom I am thankful are Alexander Carnera, Alfred Reckendrees, Anders La Cour, Andrea Mubi 5 Brighenti, Anja Vega Frederiksen, Anna Leander, Bent Meier Sørensen, Christian Garmann Johnsen, Christina Lubinski, Dan Wadhwani, Henrik Hermansen, Irina Papazu, Jacob Dahl Rendtorff, José Ossandón, Justine Grønbæk Pors, Kaspar Villadsen, Katja Høeg Tingleff, Lone Christensen, Lotte Jensen, Mads Peter Karlsen, Marc Lenglet, Max Schellmann, Michael Pedersen, Mette Nelund, Mitchell Dean, Morten Sørensen Thanning, Ole Bjerg, Ole Thyssen, Paul du Gay, Pernille Pedersen, Pierre Guillet de Monthoux, Rasmus Hougaard Nielsen, Rasmus Johnsen, Renee Ridgway, Shannon Hessel, Stefan Gaarsmand Jacobsen, Stefan Schwartzkopf, Steen Vallentin, Stephen Dunne, Sverre Raffnsøe, Timon Beyes, Tobias Brask and Øjvind Larsen. Finally, I am grateful to my parents for their unconditional support through the years and, most importantly, to Astrid for being so admirably patient with me and for smothering Frida with love and care, while I have used days, nights and weekends exploring the conundrums of the market crowds. It should be mentioned that the research that went into the dissertation was done as part of the research project ‘Crowd Dynamics in Financial Markets’ led by Christian Borch and funded by a Sapere Aude Grant from the Danish Council for Independent Research. Furthermore, some of the arguments made in the dissertation have been developed in some of my previous work. The articles in question are: ‘Contrarian investment philosophy in the American stock market: On investment advice and the crowd conundrum’, Economy and Society, 44(4) (2015) and ‘Markets, bodies, and rhythms: A rhythmanalysis of financial markets from open-outcry trading to high-frequency trading’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 33(6) (2015) (co-authored with Christian Borch and Ann-Christina Lange). Kristian Bondo Hansen Frederiksberg 28 April 2017 6 English abstract This dissertation undertakes an explorative historical analysis of problems associated with crowd phenomena in the U.S. financial markets between 1890 and 1940. While a study of crowd-related problems in the financial markets invariably involves examinations of panics and crises, the dissertation shows that crowds were not exclusively seen as crisis phenomena, but were considered by many financial writers to be of much broader significance to the organisation and functioning of markets. The dissertation claims that it is necessary to explore the close connections between financial markets and crowd phenomena in order to fully understand how markets were perceived and conceptualised in the given historical period. Inspired by Michel Foucault’s reflections on the analysis of problematisations, the dissertation explores how practical, academic and popular accounts of financial markets problematised (i.e. reflected upon, contested and responded to) various crowd phenomena as they occurred in the markets. As part of the historical exposition, the dissertation examines how financial writers employed tropes and terminology from late nineteenth century crowd theories when describing and seeking to explain the processes and practices of the markets. The dissertation argues that the way in which crowd phenomena were problematised as well as the attempts to address these alleged crowd problems influenced perceptions of financial markets and transformed approaches to market analysis and speculation. Drawing on an archive of handbooks on how to become a successful investor or speculator, scholarly work on financial markets (from the academic fields of economics, sociology and psychology) as well as a range of popular (fictional and non-fictional) textual accounts of trading in financial markets, the dissertation offers a broad, yet rigorously focused, historical perspective on crowd phenomena in financial markets. Furthermore, it explores how ideas about crowd action, imitation, herding and contagion were introduced to and became integral parts of the discourses on financial markets. Reiterations of such historically formed ideas about crowd phenomena in financial markets are still prominent in current discussions and the dissertation thus offers a historical contextualisation of a pertinent feature of contemporary debates on financial markets. 7 8 Danish abstract Denne afhandling foretager en historisk undersøgelse af problemer omhandlende massefænomener i de amerikanske finansmarkeder i perioden 1890 til 1940. Selvom studier af masseproblematikker i finansmarkeder uundgåeligt vil involvere undersøgelser af finanskriser og tilfælde af panik i markeder, så viser afhandling, at masser ikke udelukkende ansås for at være krisefænomener. Massefænomener blev, i den pågældende periode, derimod tilskrevet langt større og bredere betydning for organiseringen af finansmarkeder samt måden de fungerede på. Det hævdes i afhandlingen, at det er nødvendigt at undersøge de tætte forbindelser mellem finansmarkeder og massefænomener for at få den fulde forståelse for hvorledes markeder opfattedes samt hvorledes de blev begrebsliggjort i den pågældende historiske periode. Med inspiration fra Michel Foucaults metodologiske refleksioner over begrebet ‘problematisering’ foretager afhandlingen en historisk analyse af måder hvorpå massefænomener i finansmarkeder er blevet problematiseret (dvs. gjort til genstand for refleksioner, diskussioner og løsningsforslag) i praktiske, akademiske og populære tekster. Som en del af den historiske undersøgelse, analyseres og diskuteres det i afhandlingen hvorledes termer og ideer fra masseteorier (udformet i 1890erne) flittigt blev brugt af ‘markedsskribenter’ i beskrivelser af og forsøg på at forklare markedspraksisser og - processer. I afhandlingen argumenteres
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