The Elusive Trade: How Exchange-Traded Funds Conquered Wall Street

by Ralph H. Lehman

Overview

On January 22, 1993, the first exchange-traded fund was launched in the United States. 

It was called the SPDR fund—also known as the "Spider"—and it offered convenient and affordable exposure to a range of markets in a new way, different from traditional mutual funds. Shortly after this introduction, ETFs became an incredibly popular option for both individuals and for institutional investors, and they began to grow in numbers. In The Elusive Trade: How Exchange-Traded Funds Conquered Wall Street, Ralph H. Lehman leverages his twenty-year financial background and investment expertise to dive deep into the history of ETFs in this country, explore their development, and highlight the people who paved the way for the Spider's success, leading to the market we know now.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781612543079
Publisher:	Brown Books Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/21/2019
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Ralph Lehman has spent twenty years managing portfolios for clients and advising them on investment, tax, estate, and financial planning issues. When he first encountered ETFs, he was intrigued by this hybrid security that was changing how people could invest in the markets. He began researching the ETF's history and noticed that no one had written a full account of their incredible story. What began as hobby of ordinary research and several curious phone calls progressed into writing a book on the story of how the first ETFs were developed.

Ralph works for a financial firm that advises defined benefit and defined contribution retirement plans on their investments. He is an avid reader and enjoys a broad range of history-American, financial, economic, ancient Greek and Roman, and early Church. Ralph and his wife Charlotte reside in Knoxville, Tennessee, along with their pet Brittany, Rocky.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 When Money Met Machine 7

Chapter 2 The ETF Spark 19

Chapter 3 Black Monday 23

Chapter 4 Portfolio Uncertainty 39

Chapter 5 Two Reports 45

Chapter 6 An Extraordinary Man 49

Chapter 7 The Curb 55

Chapter 8 A Spider Is Born 63

Chapter 9 The Philadelphia Foray 65

Chapter 10 Turf Wars 69

Chapter 11 Problem Solvers and Trailblazers 73

Chapter 12 Regulators and Competitors 77

Chapter 13 Forensic Aftermath 83

Chapter 14 The Canadian Collaboration 89

Chapter 15 The Race to Market 95

Chapter 16 A Brilliant Failure 101

Chapter 17 The Hail Mary Security 105

Chapter 18 Assembling a Team 109

Chapter 19 The Spiderwoman 117

Chapter 20 From Spears to Spiders 123

Chapter 21 Launch 127

Chapter 22 Expanding Horizons 131

Chapter 23 ETFs for Everyone 139

Chapter 24 What Might Have Been 143

Chapter 25 Cracking the Retail Market 147

Notes 153

Bibliography 171

About the Author 181