The nominal value of all the securities which were quoted on the Buenos Ayres Bourse in 1907 amounted to $554,791,932 paper and $127,763,525 gold, or an actual total of £74,374,395, and an analysis gives the following results:—
| Dollars (Paper). | Dollars (Gold). | |
| Public funds and stocks | 157,025,295 | 35,000,000 |
| National Mortgage Cedulas | 129,383,100 | 11,443,600 |
| Provincial Mortgage Cedulas | 129,745,642 | — |
| Limited Companies: shares | 136,657,520 | 78,416,320 |
| Debentures and certificates | 1,980,375 | 2,903,605 |
| —————— | —————— | |
| Totals | $554,791,932 | $127,763,525 |
| ============ | ============ |
These two totals together are equal to a sum of £74,374,395.
In the first edition of this book we gave a summary of the nominal value of all the stocks quoted on the Buenos Ayres Stock Exchange in 1904; the sum amounted to 462 millions paper and 38 millions gold, or a total of £52,256,000; so that in three years these figures had increased by 93 millions paper and 70 millions gold, or over £22,000,000.
It is permissible to hope that in the course of time the Buenos Ayres Exchange will attain a far greater development, and that it will even exercise some steadying influence on the prices of the public funds. To-day their real market is in London, Paris, or Berlin, so that the credit of the country is affected by the disturbing events of European markets, while the Buenos Ayres market is devoid of any compensating effect.
However, it may be observed that when a country begins to grow rich and to have more assets at its disposal, the public funds placed abroad show a tendency towards repatriation. We have seen this in the case of Italy and Austria, which had an important foreign debt in France, and have considerably reduced it during these last ten years of economic progress.
It will certainly be the same in the case of the Argentine when, thanks to a series of good harvests, its available or fluid assets have increased beyond what is absolutely necessary for the development of agriculture. Investments will be made not only in land or in live stock, but money will be invested in stocks and shares as well, and notably in the Government stock of the country.
As a symptom of this tendency, we may mention that interest on the foreign debt, the coupons for which have hitherto been payable abroad only, is now payable in the Argentine as well, in order to facilitate the purchase of this stock in the Republic as a staple investment. The internal debt is also the object of more extensive operations, now that the seventeen loans which constituted the old debt have been unified, and now that a special call is to be made upon the internal credit of the county with a view to undertaking vast public works. To enlarge the market for this Government stock the authorities have just decided that its coupons shall be payable on the principal foreign markets.
Finally, in the course of time the market for industrial stock, bank stock, and railway shares will gradually become less restricted, in proportion as the public fortune becomes more extensively subdivided, instead of being concentrated, as it is at present, in a comparatively small number of hands. The only thing that may compromise this future is the excessive speculation which we find, unhappily only too often, in a country where gambling is a dominant instinct. This excess, with its natural sequelæ in the form of financial crises, might end by driving all serious clients from the Bourse, and in destroying the excellent elements which Buenos Ayres possesses for the creation of an important financial market.