Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/119304 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
QUCEH Working Paper Series No. 15-06
Publisher: 
Queen's University Centre for Economic History (QUCEH), Belfast
Abstract: 
Using a new weekly blue-chip index, this paper investigates the causes of stock price movements on the London market between 1823 and 1870. We find that economic fundamentals explain about 15 per cent of weekly and 34 per cent of monthly variation in share prices. Contemporary press reporting from the London Stock Exchange is used to ascertain what market participants thought were causing the largest movements on the market. The vast majority of large movements were attributed by the press to geopolitical, monetary, railway-sector, and financial-crisis news. Investigating the stock price changes on an independent list of events reaffirms these findings, suggesting that the most important specific events which moved markets were wars involving European powers.
Subjects: 
British financial history
financial markets
share price movements
JEL: 
N20
N23
N43
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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