Abstract

Finance

This article focuses on the impact of sudden death of politicians on the stock markets. The nearest instance of the sudden and unexpected death of a ruler in a great financial state was that of U.S. President William McKinley, who was shot on Friday, September 6, 1901, at 4 p.m. A month ago, any one who had pictured to himself the sudden death of the King of England, at a moment of peculiar political and financial tension, would have looked forward also, in imagination, to the gravest sort of disturbance in the markets. London, England was immediately confronted with the enormous collections of the past year's British income tax, postponed during the long Parliamentary deadlock over the budget; and finally called for payment when the budget passed in the very week before the bad news from Buckingham Palace.