Bull Market: The rise and eclipse of Australian stock exchanges

Stock exchanges were crucial in developing Australia by greasing the often-creaking wheels of investment. Their spluttering into life in the 1880s was fractious and disorganized, but fledgling stockbrokers couldn’t ignore the need for marketplaces to trade stocks and shares in the burgeoning mining industry. They struggled through the great economic distress of the Federation Drought in the 1890s and emerged as coherent, collegiate markets based in state capitals that endured for 80 years.

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