1999: A New York Stock Exchange seat changes hands for the record price of $2.65 million.

1982: With the Dow Jones Industrial Average up more than 10% in the past few days, has a bull market begun? No way, say Wall Street's experts. "This isn't to be looked at as the beginning of a major bull market," says Goldman Sachs investment strategist Steven Einhorn, "because it hasn't been validated yet by economic activity." Richard McCabe, technical analyst at Merrill Lynch, scoffs, "We think the market will come back in the fall to test its old lows" [around 777 for the Dow Jones Industrial Average]. In reality, the Dow never again comes within a country mile of the 777 level, and one of the greatest bull markets in history is already charging ahead.

Gary Putka, "If Buying Spree Is for Real, Why Is Economy Wheezing? Investors Ask," The Wall Street Journal, August 23, 1982, p. 30

1976: Vanguard launches First Index Investment Trust, the first retail index fund, to howls of derision. As Fidelity Chairman Edward C. Johnson III says that day, "The name of the game is to do the best and I can't conceive of investment managers not even trying to do better than average." Today known as Vanguard 500 Index Fund, it is now the largest mutual fund in the world.

The Vanguard Group of Investment Cos.;The Boston Globe, August 24, 1976.

1940: Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt signs into law the Investment Company Act of 1940, which limits the amount of money a mutual fund can borrow, restricts its ability to invest in securities underwritten by its brokers, and reduces the potential for conflicts of interest. As he signs the bill, Roosevelt declares: "We have come a long way since the bleak days of 1929…. I have great hopes that the act which I have signed today will enable the investment trust industry to fulfill its basic purpose as a vehicle to diversify the small investor's risk."

Joel Seligman, The Transformation of Wall Street: A History of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Modern Wall Street (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1982), p. 229

1890: The BOVESPA (Bolsa de Valores de Sao Paulo, or Sao Paulo Stock Exchange), Brazil's central securities market, is founded.