How to Invest Money. English-only reading by default; switch among English, Chinese, and Spanish, or compare languages side by side.
This chapter examines VI. Public-Utility Bonds, using the author’s early-twentieth-century investment framework to explain how investors were expected to judge security quality, income, risk, and market conditions. It opens from the chapter’s own discussion: It was a common saying among bond-dealers a few years ago that the day of the municipal bond had passed, the day of the railroad bond was passing, and the day of the public-utility bond was to be. Municipal bonds were selling at fancy prices in consequence of the low rates for money which then prevailed, and railroad bonds appeared to be following in their wake.
Readers studying financial history, investment education, and the chapter’s specific subject—public utility, franchise, street-railway bond—will get the most from this section. It is not suitable as a modern trading or investment checklist.
Read this chapter as historical investment education. The market rules, disclosure practices, securities, commissions, interest-rate conditions, and investor protections around public utility, franchise, street-railway bond may differ sharply from modern markets.