The history of the U.S. stock market is often explained with colorful anecdotes. There is the gathering of the NYSE founders by a buttonwood tree in lower Manhattan in 1792, Jay Gould cornering stocks in the nineteenth century, shoeshine boys handing out tips in 1929, and Jerry Garcia’s deathbed reaction to the Netscape IPO. Those … Continue reading The Retreat of Dividends and the Changing Nature of the Stock Market