Every Man his Own Broker
Or, A Guide to Exchange-Alley

This bestselling user's guide to investing on the developing London stock market was first published in 1761.

Thomas Mortimer (Author)

9781108025829, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 9 December 2010

214 pages, 2 b/w illus. 7 tables
21.6 x 14 x 1.2 cm, 0.28 kg

Thomas Mortimer (1730–1810) is chiefly remembered as a writer on economics. Every Man his Own Broker was first published in 1761, and ran to fourteen editions in the next forty years, this reissue being of the fourth edition. It was based on his own experience of the stock market, which in the first half of the eighteenth century was rapidly developing, but also suffered crises in which many speculators lost heavily. Increasing sales of government stock to pay for foreign wars led to concern, and Mortimer gives practical advice to readers to avoid making mistakes by relying on brokers. The book gives a good picture of how the stock market and the London financial world were operating at this time, although Mortimer's antipathy to brokers and jobbers is exaggerated. The book contains the first use of the terms 'bull' and 'bear' to describe types of markets.

Preface
1. Explanation of the nature of the public funds, commonly called the stocks
2. Of the mystery and iniquity of stock-jobbing in all its various branches
3. Of the method of transferring and accepting, or of buying into, and selling out of, the public funds, giving full directions how to transact this business without the assistance of a broker
4. Giving an account of the method of raising the annual supplies granted by Parliament, for defraying the public expenses of the state
5. Of India bonds
Appendix.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ]