Engines That Move Markets : Technology Investing from Railroads to the Internet and Beyond / Alasdair Nairn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nairn, Alasdair, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Railroads--Safety appliances.

Railroads.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (474 pages)

Edition:

Second edition.

Place of Publication:

La Vergne : Harriman House, 2018.

Summary:

Find the most lucrative markets of the future by looking to the pastSome of the biggest technological innovations in the world have followed similar market and social patterns - scepticism is replaced by enthusiasm; venture capital is supplied; many companies are started and their stocks rise. But as the technology is developed and financial reality sets in, companies disappear, stocks collapse, and naive investors lose money.Through exhaustive research, Alasdair Nairn captures this pattern and examines the impact that some of the greatest technological inventions of the past 200 years have had on financial markets and investors' fortunes. Each chapter explores a different technological innovation, and provides valuable insights on how to apply these lessons to appraise the 'new technology' companies of the future.Some of the key historical episodes examined include: - electric light and its commercial exploitation- the railway boom in Britain and the United States- the development of the automobile industry- the discovery and early development of crude oil- the rise of the PC- the wireless world- the Internet and dotcom bubble.Don't be left behind when the next technological innovation revolutionises the market. With Engines That Move Markets you'll learn how to recognise the familiar patterns unfolding in today's economy so you can profit from these market-shaping events.Read an extract of the book on Biblet https://b2l.bz/jcCSeR

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword to the First Edition by Sir John Templeton

introduction

Making Sense of Technology Bubbles

Purpose of the research

Questions raised

The scope of the research

New and updated material

Timeless lessons

chapter 1

Making Tracks

The Industrial Revolution, canals and railways

Introduction

Funding the Industrial Revolution

The heyday of canals

The new production technology is adapted for transport

Responding to the threat

Success not guaranteed

Optimism and gearing

Heroes and villains

How the boom ended

Conclusions

chapter 2

Breaking Out

The story of the US railroads

Beginnings: boats, barges and horses

Vanderbilt and America's steamboat wars

Towards a rail network

A game of monopoly: the fight for Erie

The rule of law - or corruption?

Competition and consolidation

The battle for control of the West

The railroad wars intensify

Competition of the transcontinental route

chapter 3

Investing at the Speed of Sound

How the telephone changed everything

Origins of the telegraph

The British experience

Western Union and the US market

Competitors emerge

The emergence of the telephone

From prototype to commercial development

Western Union changes tack

The importance of patents

Competition arrives

The market matures

Enter Theodore Vail

chapter 4

Lighting Up

Edison and the electric lamp

The search for illumination

Gas: a comfortable monopoly

The development of electric light

The Brush stock market bubble

The roots of arc lighting's failure

Next step: the incandescent lamp

Thomas Edison enters the field

Maintaining an interest in both camps: diversifying risk

Propaganda and confidence.

On-off enthusiasm in the markets

Edison's corporate ventures

Westinghouse and the AC/DC wars

The industry consolidates

chapter 5

Digging Deep

The search for oil

Edwin Drake's discovery

The floodgates open

Rockefeller takes a grip

From participation to domination

The world beyond Pennsylvania

New industry combinations

Public opinion turns against Big Oil

Trustbusting - the dissolution of Standard Oil

chapter 6

Driving Forward

The history of the automobile

The search for a horseless carriage

Europe's first pioneers

The race to attract attention

America takes a turn of the wheel

Enter the Duryea brothers

The battle for technology leadership

The Lead Cab Trust

The market begins to form

The impact of Henry Ford

Early attempts to consolidate

Durant joins the fray

The Studebaker story

The evolution of the automobile industry in America

The industry in Europe

chapter 7

Making Waves

The story of wireless, from Marconi to Baird

Marconi and the origins of wireless

From wire to wireless - the technology in context

Marconi courts the press

Scientific scepticism

From demonstration to practicality

The market starts to develop

Stock funding, De Forest style

The Marconi companies

Government steps in

Commercial spin-offs from the radio

RCA - the national champion

The birth of broadcasting

Development of the broadcasting industry

Television: an idea ahead of its time

chapter 8

Making it Count

From adding machines to mainframes

The business of counting

Babbage and his engines

The cash register rings up

Big business in counting heads

The race to find other uses

The next wave of innovation

The legacy of Bletchley Park.

Next stop the vacuum tube

ENIAC and EDVAC

Up against the funding wall

Success for the UNIVAC

The arrival of the transistor

Computer wars

Timesharing: an idea before its time

From mainframes to minicomputers

chapter 9

Processing Power for All

The rise of the PC

The roots of the PC

The birth of Intel

The calculator - accidental mass market product

Economic imperatives

From calculators to the PC

Creating an industry

From myth to reality - two new products

Apple and the search for a user-friendly machine

IBM lumbers in

Send in the clones

Microsoft's vision

The PC business in perspective

chapter 10

The Internet

How computing timeshare became a global phenomenon

Part I: The lure of computer networking

Something stirs in academia

Timeshare computing: means to an end

Nurtured by the military

Marketing the dream

From academia to commercialisation

Enter Cisco Systems

Towards an electronic post office

The challenge of access

Part 2: Commericalising the Internet

Privatisation was the key

The rise and fall of Netscape

Getting access: America Online

Browser wars

A new business model

The Yahoo story

Google - so much for first-mover advantage!

The market developed differently

A pioneering IPO

Amazon: buying things

Heading to market

Facebook: the rise of social media

Part 3: The Internet bubble in perspective

A new Industrial Revolution…

…and a monster stock market bubble

Inflating the bubble

Valuation issues

Web 1.0 (1997-2003): analysing the Internet boom

Out of the wreckage

Web 2.0 (2008+): a new bubble?

Part 4: Looking to the future

Towards a brave new world

chapter 11

The Anatomy of Technology Investing

The persistence of change.

Clear in retrospect, but rarely in advance

The technology cycle

What works and what does not

The economic impact

The Internet and the technology cycle

The market impact of the Internet bubble

The misallocation of capital to telecoms

Where we are today

The broader impact and the future

Timeless lessons about technology investing

Publishing details.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780857196002

0857196006