A prudent silence will frequently be taken for wisdom and a sentence or two cautiously thrown in will sometimes gain the palm of knowledge, while a man well informed but indiscreet and unreserved will not uncommonly talk himself out of all consideration and weight. (Alexander Hamilton's 'thesis on discretion' written to his son James shortly before his fatal duel with Burr.)

If you go back to the time of J.P. Morgan, the world of high finance was completely wholesale. The prestigious investment banks on Wall Street appealed exclusively to large corporations, governments, and to extremely wealthy individuals.

In the 1920s you could buy stocks on margin. You could put 10 percent down and borrow the rest against your stocks.

After being Washington's aide for four years and becoming the hero of Yorktown, Hamilton was viewed with a great deal of suspicion because of his association with Tories.

The best argument for mutual funds is that they offer safety and diversification. But they don't necessarily offer safety and diversification.

The history of Wall Street is inseparable from New York.

By the late 1980s people realized that houses did not always appreciate and that they could fluctuate like any other market commodity.