The History Of Stock Warrants

Warrants have literally been available for investors for many decades but yet are very under appreciated and overlooked by most investors.

As far back as the 1920s many large companies have had stock warrants trading, AT&T, Goldcorp, Bank of America, General Motors, Ford Motors and Agnico-Eagle Mines, among hundreds and hundreds of others.

My extensive knowledge of warrants goes back to the 1970’s and my fascination with the writings of Sidney Fried and The R.H.M. Warrant Survey, a hard copy newsletter and a popular financial newsletter during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. (Fried, 1949) Sidney Fried passed away in 1991 at the age of 72 and to the best of my knowledge, his service stopped in the late 1970s or early 1980s around the time that options began to trade on the CBOE.

Sidney Fried’s first book, ‘The Speculative Merits of Common Stock Warrants’ (1949) is a rare and timeless educational tool for warrants and is the core of knowledge used by me in my service. Since 2005 I have used this cumulative knowledge of warrants which I learned from the ‘master’ to educate and assist investors around the world and I have collected all of the writings of Sidney Fried. Even though these works are old, the information is timeless and only the examples used are out of date.

One quote from Sidney Fried which I have used many times at investment conferences is very appropriate here:

“With potential profits and losses so great it a source of wonder that so little understanding of the nature of common stock warrants exists, not only among the investing ‘public’, who might be forgiven this sin, but even among the many ‘professionals’ of the business upon whom the ‘public’ depends for information and guidance.”

In the very popular and highly recommended book, “The Coming Collapse of the Dollar and How to Profit from It” by James Turk and John Rubino, they discuss options and LEAPS as a possible avenue for investing in the mining stocks. They did not discuss our third possibility, warrants, which I feel is more “investor friendly”. Why?  Because of the all-important element of TIME.  How many times have your options expired worthless but yet within a few months or so your stock goes up; you just ran out of TIME?

If you would like more information on stock warrants visit my website.

Dudley Pierce Baker
Editor – Founder
http://CommonStockWarrants.com