Daytripping in the 19th Century ; Speculation Is Easily One of the Oldest Professions. On the Bombay Stock Exchange, It Started 131 Years Ago.

Summary

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A big bull broker discretely doling out tips on hot buys, investors either making a killing or losing their shirts, an occasional financial scandal, even a bomb blast-sound familiar? Yes, we're talking about the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), but not in its present 28-storey, two-faced tower avatar. Rather, all these proverbial elements first played themselves out over a century ago at the BSE-which completed 131 years last fortnight-the most glaring difference, of course, being that brokers didn't sit behind trading terminals, but under a banyan tree at Bombay Greens in the 1850s. (That tree still stands in Horniman Circle, a stone's throw away from the BSE building).

The Big Bull of those early years was one Premchand Roychand, who led a group of brokers under the umbrella of The Native Share and Stockbrokers Association. By 1875, this motley bunch formalised their association, which came to be known as the Bombay Stock Exchange. And thus was born the oldest stock exchange in Asia.

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Daytripping in the 19th Century ; Speculation Is Easily One of the Oldest Professions. On the Bombay Stock Exchange, It Started 131 Years Ago.

Roychand, who was also known as the Cotton King in those days, pretty much controlled the markets then and was also respon...

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