The Rise And Fall Of The Nasdaq

from the how-it-all-came-down dept

The Washington Post is running a series of articles about the "roots" of the boom and the bust. They started yesteday with the typical story of one large telecom company, McLeod, that followed the vision of its charismatic CEO all the way up and down to bankruptcy. It reads like just about any other similar profile you've probably read in the newspaper or business magazine of your choice. However, a more interesting article is the second one which focuses on the rise and fall of Nasdaq - not the stock market, itself, but the organization that runs it. The article suggests that the Nasdaq is partly to blame for the mess by making it too easy to list, and not doing enough to police its members. Of course, it's easy to look at these things in retrospect. Can you imagine how crazy people would have gone if the Nasdaq had suddenly raised listing requirements in the middle of the boom? There would have been death threats flying. In the end, as much as people want to point the blame finger at others, it was the investors themselves that ate up the hype and bought into all these companies and their hype.