REQUEST A DEMO with a GFDFinaeon Specialist

The Course of the Exchange made the first attempt to break the stock market down into sectors in 1811 when it expanded its coverage of stocks to include shares other than the three sisters, the Bank of England, South Sea stock and East India Company that dominated the English stock market in the 1700s.
Twenty securities were listed in The Course of the Exchange from 1747 to 1811 as a group. On January 1, 1811, coverage expanded to two pages and stocks were divided into different sectors: canals, docks, assurance, water works and miscellaneous companies. On August 30, 1811, Iron Railways were added as a sector, including the
...The equity-risk premium (ERP) is one of the most important variables in finance. In theory, riskier stocks should provide a higher return than risk-free government bonds, but unfortunately, this is not always true. Different factors drive return to stocks and bonds. Bond returns are driven by inflation; stock returns are driven by corporate cash flows. The two will vary independently of one another. It is not risk alone that determines the equity-risk premium. ...
GFD has calculated a global index of stocks that begins in 1602 and continues until the present. With this index, we can track the changes in global stock markets over the past 400 years, determine when bear markets occurred and study the causes of those bear markets.
We have already shown that you can divide up the history of equity markets into four eras: the period of Mercantilism (1600-1799) during which a few international trade companies dominated stock exchanges, Free Trade (1800-1914) during which railroads, finance and other industries grew in size, Regulation (1914-1981) during which government regulation and
...GFD is revising its stock index for Australia because it can now use data on Australian shares that were listed in London to supplement the data that already exists from Sydney and other Australian exchanges. Australia has one of the highest returns of any stock market in the world, but this is in part due to problems with the indices that were calculated in the 1950s and the biases in that data. Historical data for Australia was calculated by Lamberton in the 1950s, but the data are limited to commercial companies and ignores returns to mining and finance companies. A similar problem exists with the indices calculated by Schumann
...Many people believe that Abraham Lincoln was the greatest President of the United States. Not only did his steadfast leadership help the United States to survive the Civil War, but as President he pursued his vision of a united country, free from slavery and war. Lincoln’s vision of America went beyond winning the Civil War and freeing the slaves and extended to uniting the East and West by building a transcontinental railroad across the United States. As President, Lincoln was instrumental in approving the three routes that eventually crossed the continent to bring the two halves of the country together and ensure that the United States
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Figure 1. S&P 500, 2009 to
The Great Bull Market of 2009 to 2019 continues to push the stock market to new highs. The capitalization of the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ is now about $37.5 trillion which is equal to 174% of America’s Gross Domestic Product. If the market continues to rise, the American stock market will soon have its largest Market Capitalization/GDP Ratio (MCap/GDP) in history.
The American stock market first exceeded 100% of GDP in September 1929 before it crashed to its 1932 lows at less than 25% of GDP. The stock market’s capitalization didn’t exceed GDP again until 1996. The Dot.com Bubble of the late 1990s pushed the
...I often crave donuts being the sugar lover that I am. And I am not alone here at Global Financial Data. On the way to the office there is a local Donut shop called Rose Donuts & Cafe, which has the best donuts as is depicted in Figure 1 — fluffy, fresh, overly large delights such as maple bars, cake donuts, sprinkles, chocolate glazed, old fashioned, Bavarian crème filled goodies, and cinnamon rolls so large you could quarter them and still be stuffed. So many flavors to choose from, French-croissants and fresh baked muffins.
S&P 500: 514.71 (vs. 2783.36 in 04/2020) 10-year U.S. Government Bond Yield: 7.07% (vs. 0.63% in 04/2020) Gold: $389.75 (vs. $1718.65 in 04/2020) Oil: $20.355 (vs. $19.96 in 04/2020) GBP/USD: 1.612 (vs. 1.2488 in 04/2020) US GDP: $7,455 billion (vs. $21,734 billion in 12/2019) US Population: 266 million (vs. 329 million in
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25 years ago: December 1994
S&P 500: 459.27 (vs. 3132.52 in 12/2019)
10-year U.S. Government Bond Yield: 7.84% (vs. 1.85% in 12/2019)
Gold: $383.25 (vs. $1461.70 in 12/2019)
Oil: $17.765 (vs. $58.99 in 12/2019)
GBP/USD: 1.566 (vs. 1.3115 in 12/2019)
US GDP: $7,331 billion (vs. $21,542 billion in 09/2019)
US Population: 260 million (vs. 329 million in 2019)
12/01/1994: Orange County, Calif., says the value of its investment fund has dropped by an estimated $1.5 billion, as rising interest rates hurt derivatives in its highly leveraged
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25 years ago: January 1995
S&P 500: 470.42 (vs. 3253.05 in 01/2020)
10-year U.S. Government Bond Yield: 7.60% (vs. 1.85% in 01/2020)
Gold: $374.90 (vs. $1571.95 in 01/2020)
Oil: $18.405 (vs. $59.65 in 01/2020)
GBP/USD: 1.5785 (vs. 1.3077 in 01/2020)
US GDP: $7,331 billion (vs. $21,542 billion in 09/2019)
US Population: 266 million (vs. 329 million in 2019)
01/02/1995: Mexico develops a rescue plan to deal with the crisis sparked by last month’s peso devaluation.
01/03/1995: The U.S. and China move close to a trade war as President Clinton
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25 years ago: May 1994
S&P 500: 456.50 (vs. 2881.40 in 05/2019)
10-year U.S. Government Bond Yield: 7.17% (vs. 2.47% in 05/2019)
Gold: $387.60 (vs. $1287.10 in 05/2019)
Oil: $18.295 (vs. $61.65 in 05/2019)
GBP/USD: 1.5105 (vs. 1.2999 in 05/2019)
US GDP: $7,115 billion (vs. $21,062 billion in 03/2019)
US Population: 260 million (vs. 328 million in 2019)
05/04/1994: The White House recruits central banks around the world to buy the flagging dollar in the biggest show of force currency markets have seen in a decade. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat
25 years ago: November 1995
S&P 500: 605.37 (vs. 3550.50 in 11/2020)
10-year U.S. Government Bond Yield: 5.76% (vs. 0.96% in 11/2020)
...Existing calculations of long-term stock market returns in the United States are based upon four primary sources: Smith and Cole (1803-1862), Macaulay (1857-1871) Cowles (1871-1928) and Standard and Poor’s (1928-2017). Unfortunately, these indices have major flaws in them that create biases that researchers have tolerated until now because no one has ever collected historical data on U.S. share prices, corporate actions (dividends and splits) and shares outstanding so accurate price and return indices could be calculated. The current S&P Composite includes data from the Cowles Indices from 1871 until
...The 2020s have begun. During the 2010s, the fixed-income market has done things no one would have predicted when the 2010s began ten years ago. The most important feature of the past decade has been the steady decline in government bond yields, falling to negative nominal yields in most of Europe and negative real yields in the United States and Canada.
Government bond yields have been declining since 1981 throughout the world. In the United States, the 10-year bond yield was 3.85% at the end of 2009, but has declined to under 1.90% today. The yield on 10-year government bonds in Japan has declined from 1.30% in 2009 to
...Most people know the basic story of the French Revolution. France’s aid to the United States indebted the nation leading to new taxes that fed a revolt against the king and the aristocracy. The Estates General was convened in May 1789, and on July 14, 1789, the Bastille was stormed marking the beginning of the French Revolution. The Declaration of the Rights of Man was passed and feudalism was abolished in August 1789. France became a republic in September 1792 and in January 1793, King Louis XVI was executed. A dictatorship gained power in 1793 under Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety which introduced the Reign of Terror.
...On December 9, Paul Volcker, who served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank from 1979 to 1987, died at the age of 92. Paul Volcker changed the shape of the economy and of financial markets.
The Rise and Fall of Interest Rates
Paul Volcker is known for two things. He instituted the Volcker Rule as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This prohibited banks from conducting some investment activities with their own accounts and limited their dealings with hedge funds and private equity funds.
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Dr. Bryan Taylor, President and Cheif Economist for Global Financial Data, speaks with KPCW, Mountain Money about the impacts the Spanish Flu had on the stock market in 1918 and how we can look at that data to understand the current market and impacts from |
Global Financial Data has collected extensive data on stocks from the United States and the United Kingdom covering over 400 years. With this, GFD plans to generate indices that cover the history of the stock market from the incorporation of the Dutch East India Company in 1602 to the current market in 2018. GFD will provide a general index, sector indices and size indices.
One question which the creation of size indices creates is how many components should be in the large cap, midcap and small cap indices. Where should large cap, midcap and small cap begin and end? Currently, each index company treats large cap, midcap and
...GFD has calculated a global index of stocks that begins in 1602 and continues until the present. With this index, we can track the changes in global stock markets over the past 400 years. In particular, we can determine when bear markets occurred and study the causes of those bear markets.
The number of stocks used in the index has grown over time. Data from the 1600s is based upon the data for only one stock, the Dutch West India Co., so any analysis of bear markets during the seventeenth century would only look at the behavior of one stock, not of the global market. There is virtually no data from Amsterdam between 1692 and
...Global Financial Data has produced indices that cover global markets from 1601 until 2018. In organizing this data, we have discovered that the history of the stock market over the past 400 years can be broken up into four distinct eras when economic and political factors affected the size and organization of the stock market in different ways. Politics and economics define the limits of financial markets by determining whether companies can exist in the private or the public sector, by controlling the flow of capital in financial markets, and by determining the level of regulation that companies face in maximizing
... Global Financial Data has put together indices of the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange before World War I and the collapse of Russia into Communism. The data was made available to us from Yale’s International Center for Finance. The files were marked in transliterated Cyrillic, so we converted the names back into Cyrillic and then translated the names of the companies into English. We then classified the stocks according to their sector so we could see how one sector did relative to the
This is the third in a series of blogs we are writing about global bear markets that have occurred over the past 400 years. Global Financial Data has calculated a World Stock Index that covers equities from 1602 until the present. The index included only one company in the 1600s, a handful of international trading companies in the 1700s, ten stock markets in the 1800s and all developed markets in the 1900s. Today there are over 100 stock markets throughout the world with about 25 developed markets, 25 emerging markets and 50 frontier markets.
The 1700s was a century of war during which there were five bear markets, each driven
...Our comprehensive financial databases span global markets offering data never compiled into an electronic format. We create and generate our own proprietary data series while we continue to investigate new sources and extend existing series whenever possible. GFD supports full data transparency to enable our users to verify financial data points, tracing them back to the original source documents. GFD is the original supplier of complete historical data.