Lionel sat on the couch and asked with a smile, "I wonder if you have some basic knowledge of the stock and bond markets?" ”

Arthur recalls that when he first arrived in London from the Yorkshire countryside, his first stop was to make a beeline for the London Stock Exchange, the world's financial center in the 19th century.

But his luck was not good, or rather his luck was too good, to witness the second major collapse of the London stock exchange since its formation, and its last collapse dates back to the South Sea Company bubble in 1720, which occurred in the last century.

In 1720, the South Sea Company, which had a monopoly on British trade with Spain's South American colonies, relied on a dizzying array of investment and trade schemes and all sorts of half-truths and so-called inside information to boost the trading enthusiasm of the London Stock Exchange.

And when the directors of the South Sea Company found it easier to make money from the stock market than it was to sell slaves in the company's laborious manner, they felt as if they had opened the door to a new world.

Beginning in April 1720, the Nanhai Company began to publish various proposals and advertise the company's great blueprint in the newspapers.

According to later statistics, the board of directors of the Nanhai Company announced 11 fishing plans, 10 insurance plans, and in the future, 2 international exchange companies, 12 American colonial or trading companies, 20 real estate and construction companies, 8 companies specializing in the supply of coal, livestock, fodder, roads, bridges and canals to London, 12 textile companies such as silk and cotton, 15 mining companies, and more than 60 inexplicable enterprises, and also boldly announced that the Nanhai Company would pay 60% at Christmas dividends.

However, it is precisely these visions that these normal people seem to know that are not very reliable that have fooled the most astute minds of all of Great Britain.

In the eyes of those investors, the South Sea Company was originally formed to form a giant monopoly for the purpose of developing trade in the South Atlantic, and for this purpose, the South Sea Company also took on about 10 million pounds of liquid public debt from the British government.

How can the promises of such a giant company backed by the British government deceive investors?

As a result, investors who were blinded by the huge profits completely lost their rationality and judgment, and they rushed to buy the company's shares, which eventually caused the company's share price to rise from £120 to £1,020 in three months.

However, it didn't take long for the myth of Nanhai's wealth to come to an end.

At the end of July, companies began to take Nanhai to court, accusing them of serious debt defaults.

And other companies that have a debt relationship with the South Sea Company gradually noticed that something was wrong, and when everyone passed each other's anger, they finally realized that fuck, it turned out that these grandsons were playing with empty gloves white wolves.

In order to stop the loss in time, they finally decided to jointly write to Parliament and ask the UK Treasury and the Supreme Court to intervene in the audit of the accounts of the South Sea Company.

As soon as the news of the suspected accounting falsification of the Nanhai Company broke, the stock price of the Nanhai Company plummeted from the opening of the London Stock Exchange on August 25, 1720, and in just one month, the price of their shares fell from a high of 1,020 pounds to 190 pounds.

Countless investors went bankrupt as a result, and almost overnight, rooftops in London were filled with shareholders of the South Sea Company.

The South Sea fraud case also directly caused political turmoil in London.

King George I issued several Privy Council orders calling for a thorough investigation of the Nanhai Company case.

Almost immediately, the parliament arrested all the members of the board of directors of the South Sea Company and confiscated all the property in their names, imprisoned George Caswell, the director of the South Sea Company, who was directly responsible, in the Tower of London, and then urgently passed the Bubble Company Suppression Act and set up a special committee of 13 members to investigate the bankruptcy of the South Sea Company.

Regardless, the Nanhai bankruptcy caused millions of pounds in losses and left the London Stock Exchange in a prolonged slump for decades to come.

One of its few positive effects may have been the birth of the UK's first ever de facto prime minister, when Robert Walpole, the first chancellor of the exchequer, secured the top spot in the cabinet for his handling of the South Sea case, and established the British tradition of the first chancellor leading the cabinet.

Arthur's encounter was the 1825-1826 bank bankruptcy crisis.

The cause of this crisis is very simple, and it is not even different from the Nanhai case in substance.

To put it bluntly, before the Banking Act of 1826, all banks established in England were free to issue bank notes.

The so-called bank bills, in fact, are pounds, and any depositor can go to the bank with the face value of the bank notes and ask for the equivalent amount of gold.

However, in the 19th century, the amount of gold mined was far less than the increase in British wealth, so this directly led to the repeated occurrence of large and small banks printing money in order to seize the share of the bank without sufficient reserves of gold.

The consequences of indiscriminate printing of empty banknotes are also obvious, and when a customer comes to ask for a return of gold with bundles of bank notes, the bank teller can only stare at him.

As soon as this kind of news came out, it naturally triggered a run on the British people, and everyone rushed to take the banknotes and ask the bank to pay as soon as possible, and the threshold of the major banks was about to be flattened by them.

Faced with this situation, 70 banks with insufficient gold reserves had to announce that they would stop paying.

The government had no choice but to urgently order the dispatch of military and police to maintain order in various localities and strictly prevent riots in various localities.

In order to fill this hole, the Bank of England, the largest bank in Great Britain, had to use its own gold reserves to help them fill the hole, but it was okay not to help, this gang, and as a result, the Bank of England almost put itself into it.

At the last minute, several partners of the Bank of England almost knelt down directly to Nathan Rothschild and Alexander Balin, two big London bankers who controlled a lot of gold.

In times of crisis, the Bank of Rothschild and the Bank of Baring, persuaded by Tories bigwigs such as Lord Liverpool, the Duke of Wellington and Sir Peel, finally decided to urgently allocate most of their gold reserves to the Bank of England.

In order to show their loyalty to the Tories, the Rothschild family, who were the pursemen of the Duke of Wellington, used almost all of their gold reserves in Paris, Naples, Frankfurt and Vienna, and obtained some gold reserves from Russia at a great cost through their own connections, so that they could scrape together 11 million pounds worth of gold and barely plug the hole for the Bank of England.

But although the crisis has passed in a flash, as many as 70 banks have announced their bankruptcy and delisting from the London Stock Exchange.

In this way, the London Stock Exchange, which had finally come out of the shadow of the South China Sea case, fell into a trough again.

Arthur was a poor boy who had just come from the countryside at that time, but even so, he couldn't help but be fascinated in his heart when he looked at the expressions of the capital tycoons in the London Stock Exchange.

Tens of millions of pounds per minute, although it is a loss of money, but it is still enjoyable.

If it's not his, it's even more enjoyable.

Arthur picked up the teacup, pondered for a moment, and said, "I do have some doubts about stock trading. ”

It wasn't long, but it was enough for Lionel to understand Arthur's tactful resistance.

Lionel smiled and said, "It's nothing, if you don't plan to invest in stocks, I have many options for you to choose from." In this way, I will first list the advantages and disadvantages of several asset allocations, real estate, bonds, stocks, which one is more suitable for you, you can judge for yourself.

And stocks are not as terrible as the public in Great Britain thinks, according to our analysis, the London Stock Exchange is at its lowest point in recent years, and it may rebound upwards at any time, and the future really will not be lower than this. ”

When Arthur heard this, he couldn't help frowning slightly.

How did he hear it, but how he felt that it sounded.

The Red Devil on the side saw that he was still hesitating, and couldn't help but urge: "Arthur, don't hesitate! Mammon is beckoning to you, copy the bottom quickly, copy the bottom for me! ”

When Arthur heard this, he finally understood where the key words were.

He couldn't help but have a simple doubt in his heart - which stubble is greener than leeks in the 19th century and those in the 21st century?

But Lionel was so enthusiastic that he was slightly interested.

He asked, "So what do you think is the best direction to invest at this time?" ”

Seeing that Arthur finally relented, the smile on his face grew stronger, and he opened his mouth to reply.

"You can rest assured that you are not the first customer to use Rothschild Private Financial Services. While we don't normally divulge private information about our clients, as this is no secret, I can tell you in the open sense that the Duke of Wellington is also one of our key clients, and your boss, Sir Peel, Secretary of State for the Interior, also has some of the money in our hands. ”

After Lionel said this, Arthur was not moved, but Dumas couldn't resist it first.

He asked: "Then I wonder how much personal money is needed for Rothschild Bank's private financial services?" ”

Lionel said with a smile: "I think it mainly depends on whether we have a good trading relationship with our clients, and personal funds will always be considered by us in the second priority." But if you're a friend of Mr. Hastings, I think £1,000 is enough. ”

When Alexandre Dumas heard this, he gritted his teeth and said, "You wait, I'll work hard." ”

When Lionel heard this, he couldn't help but smile and asked Arthur, "So, Mr. Hastings, may I start the introduction?" ”

Arthur nodded, "Of course, please." ”

Tonight, I was a little stimulated by writing this chapter, and readers and friends are waiting for me

(End of chapter)