In praise of speculation, from Émile Zola’s Money (L’Argent). As someone researching 19th-century corporate finance, reading this amazing novel feels like watching my subject come alive.
Note the spike after WW2 ended: firms in German-occupied Belgium were allowed to pay (restricted) dividends during the war, but Congo firms could hardly do so as Congo was outside German control. The profits they accumulated during the war were paid as dividends after the war.