This chapter deals with a specific dimension of the boundaries of finance: the mediation of value judgments by securities analysts. It traces the emergence of chartists as a specific group in relation to the new kind of price data generated by the stock ticker. Occasional and unsystematic evaluation of securities had always taken place, and financial information had always been collected, more or less systematically. The new price data, however, boosted efforts to predict future prices movements and, with them, the value of securities. Some brokers left financial transactions and moved into...

This chapter deals with a specific dimension of the boundaries of finance: the mediation of value judgments by securities analysts. It traces the emergence of chartists as a specific group in relation to the new kind of price data generated by the stock ticker. Occasional and unsystematic evaluation of securities had always taken place, and financial information had always been collected, more or less systematically. The new price data, however, boosted efforts to predict future prices movements and, with them, the value of securities. Some brokers left financial transactions and moved into price interpretation. They diligently began selling their intellectual product around, and so technical analysis was thus born. The chapter examines, how using memoirs, letters, journal articles, and manuals, a group of former brokers and statisticians successfully marketed price charts and technical analyses to investors and stock brokers alike. Contrary to the assumption that the growing complexity and mass of financial information required this sort of cognitive intermediation, it shows here how intermediaries created a demand for this sort of product.