“The existence of a broad, continuous market is an economic necessity in the modern scheme of widespread investment of capital. Even though the market-place is largely filled with speculators, it is plain that the greater the number of traders in securities, the greater will be the facility for buying and selling any quantity of securities. The stock market is a powerful aid in floating new issues of public securities. The speculative market takes them at once and keeps them in the floating supply until they have shown their value. The stock market also renders a useful service in giving a continuous guide to the success or failure of industrial undertakings, and the worth of their securities. The more speculators there are trading in any particular security, the greater is the opportunity to learn the real conditions of the undertaking. Private investors, from a study of the speculative market in the securities they own, receive in this way a continuous market opinion on the condition of the corporations in which they are shareholders.”[11] Another great service rendered by the Stock Exchange is the means it affords of readily transferring securities from hand to hand. To appreciate the importance of this fact you have but to think of the difficulties and delays that attend the transfer of other forms of property that do not enjoy Exchange facilities. Real estate, for example, is a most excellent form of investment. But suppose the owner of real estate wants to sell in a hurry, what then? There is no large organized market, there is no way by which through competitive bidding, he can place a correct estimate of the importance of current events upon the price of his land. In the urgency of his needs he may easily be misled by “smart” or unscrupulous advisers, and this risk increases in direct proportion to his remoteness from large market centres.