...some over-optimistic, many fraudulent. A thousand subscribers were found for one new company formed 'for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is'. Because sham companies were diverting investors from its own share sales, the South Sea Company prosecuted...

...companies launched to capitalize on the new fashion for financial fluttering. Many of them, like the "company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is," were as fictitious as the emerald mountain of Mississippi. In Paris, euphoria vanished and the atmosphere...

...price, was to manufacture radish oil, which had ho known use. Another, which was oversubscribed, was "A company for Carrying on an Undertaking of Great Advantage, but Nobody to Know what it is." A newspaper of the time wrote that the cry was "For God's sake, let us subscribe to something; we don't...

...company with no stated purpose at all. The prospectus coyly hinted that the company had been organized "for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is." For every £2 invested, the promoter declared that subscribers would be entitled to £100 a year in...

...and Silver from Lead and orher sorts of ore." One cheeky soul even set up a company "for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage but nobody to know what it is." After gathering up the subscriptions. he fled to the Continent.3 In September 1720. the bubble burst....

...mines in 'Terra Australis." Others were mere hoaxes, none of which has become more famous than the "Company for carrying on an Undertaking of great Advantage, but Nobody to know what it is."* More than one hundred of these lesser bubbles were started in May and *Sadly, John Carswell, author...

...ones (to be used against infidels). The prize, however, must surely go to the promoter who started "A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is." As in all speculative manias, eventually the bubble popped, and investors suffered massive losses in...

...quicksilver into a malleable fine metal, creating a wheel for perpetual motion and, most improbably of all, "for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage: but nobody to know what it is."1 This period of delirious, widespread speculation in ventures of questionable substance and merit...

...Lead"; "For trading in Human Hair"; "For a Wheel of Perpetual Motion"; and, most gloriously, 35 "a Company for carrying on an Undertaking of Great Advantage, but Nobody to know what it is." Similarly, some of Wall Street's best-performing stocks in 1987 were enterprises that had neither profits...

...Columbia Savings and Loan, 122 Commodity Futures Trading Commission, 146 Commonwealth Edison, 85 "a company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is," 18, 115 Compaq, 155 competition. See also Icarus Effect; monopolies; regulators and Carnegie, Andrew,...