In the 1920s, Wall Street was a world that was really dominated by professional speculators and stock pools. These people had a monopoly over information.
Ron Chernow

In the 1970s we saw a massive shift of household savings from the banks to the brokerage firms.
Ron Chernow

Mutual fund managers are trapped in this rather deadly vicious circle: the more successful they are, the more money flows into their mutual fund. Then, it is more difficult for them to beat the market averages or even to match their own past performance.
Ron Chernow

Mutual funds give people the sense that they're investing with the big boys and that they're really not at a disadvantage entering the stock market.
Ron Chernow

Mutual funds have historically offered safety and diversification. And they spare you the responsibility of picking individual stocks.
Ron Chernow

Once the brokerage house, rather than the bank, became the locus for American savings, that money would find its way into the stock market, because the broker was someone with a much higher tolerance for risk than the banker.
Ron Chernow

One of the special characteristics of New York is that it is different from a London or a Paris because it's the financial capital, and the cultural capital, but not the political capital.
Ron Chernow

One of the very nice things about investing in the stock market is that you learn about all different aspects of the economy. It's your window into a very large world.
Ron Chernow

Partly because his life ended before the age of 50, Hamilton was defined by the other founding fathers, and he managed, with amazing consistency, to alienate most of them.
Ron Chernow

Stock market corrections, although painful at the time, are actually a very healthy part of the whole mechanism, because there are always speculative excesses that develop, particularly during the long bull market.
Ron Chernow

That strategy of buy and hold, which is the sound and sensible one for the individual, can have very dangerous and perverse effects for the market as a whole.
Ron Chernow

The American public historically was really not part of the stock market.
Ron Chernow

The best argument for mutual funds is that they offer safety and diversification. But they don't necessarily offer safety and diversification.
Ron Chernow

The founding fathers were not only brilliant, they were system builders and systematic thinkers. They came up with comprehensive plans and visions.
Ron Chernow

The Great Inflation of the 1970s destroyed faith in paper assets, because if you held a bond, suddenly the bond was worth much less money than it was before.
Ron Chernow

The history of Wall Street is inseparable from New York.
Ron Chernow

The mutual fund industry and small investors are very relentless and very unforgiving if people don't perform.
Ron Chernow

The public has lost faith in the ability of Social Security and Medicare to provide for old age. They've lost faith in the banking system and in conventional medical insurance.
Ron Chernow

The securities laws of the 1930s were so important because it forced companies to file registration statements and issue prospectuses, and it remedied the imbalance of information.
Ron Chernow

There is a kind of fear, approaching a panic, that's spreading through the Baby Boom Generation, which has suddenly discovered that it will have to provide for its own retirement.
Ron Chernow