ONE

Wall Street, the short, narrow street in lower Manhathan running east from Broadway to the East River, is a place where stocks and bonds worth billions of dollars change hands daily. The neighbor- hood is distinguished by glittering skydcrapers set back on handsome plazas and by other smaller offices buildings, vintage 1920 or earlier. It is known to insiders as the Street. By and large, there is nothing exceptional about the look of the Street or the people who work on the Street. Nothing to suggest it's concentration of wealth and power that make it the financial capital of the United States and therefore of the world. But the Street is more than a small geographic area. It is a state of mind. A dream street to the hundred million Americans who have stake in a pension plan or a mutual fund which they count on to help them when they retire. It is the place where " the public" more than 47 million Americans who buy and sell stocks in their own name-----------express their hopes, fears, greed, and all too often their naivete. It is this naivete that is responsible for the Wall Street axiom " The public is always wrong."

Herbert Coz watched the bulbs that make up the dot matrices of the four huge digital clocks overlooking the main trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The numbers changed: 3:49 became 4:00. A bell sounded. The trading day was over. Within a single heartbeat, everyone on the floor turned to look at their video screens. The words they were waiting for appeared. The Dow Jones 30 Industrial Average Closing Price-------2405. The Dow had closed over 2,400; a Himalayan peak! April 6, 1987, was an historic day on the New York Stock Exchange.

The response was electrifying. Streamers of ticker tape were hurled across the floor. Flights of paper airplanes arched through the air. A few enterprising floor traders had stored rolls of toilet paper just for the occasion. They now threw them toward the ceiling. As they sailed skyward they unrolled, leaving ghostlike trails in their wake. Bald men with swollen stomachs threatening to burst their trading jackets capered about, each dancing to his own personal rhythm, slapping one another on the back, congratulating everyone in sight. No distinctions were made. Senior parners in charge of floor trading shook hands with page boys. Or girls. Specialists kissed one another like French diplomats. Five floor traders did a commendable buck- and-wing. A page girl stood on her hands. Somewhere, someone played a bugle. Someone else pounded a drum. Suddenly, a second cheer, as loud as the first, echoed through the high- ceilinged room. New words and numbers had appeared on the trading post screens. Number of Shares Traded__302,469,000. A second flurry of ticker tape, more toilet paper, and another round of paper planes were launched. The applause and stamping grew louder. Bravo for 300 million!

Long before the celebration had even started to wind down, word flashed around the world. Television and radio financial writers were chuming out copy to be read by local and network anchormen. It had been a memorable day on the Street. For the first time since 1792--- the year twenty--four merchants and brokers set up their first trading booth under an elm tree at 68 Wall Street----the Dow Jones industrial average had closed at over two thousand. And there was another first. More than 300 million shares traded. Computer--proggrammed buying triggered massive purchases of stock by the funds. The executable public, galvanized into action by the morning surge in the Dow, then went on a wild buying spree in the afternoon. They were buying for their future. For their childrens future. Their grandchildrens.

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