Stock Market Crash and Financial Romances

Abstract

A world of risky financial adventures, huge fortunes and disastrous collapses has been described  in a lot of novels, short stories, films.  Starting with Zola’s Money (1891), that, through the character of Aristide Saccard, focuses on the Paris Bourse in the Second French Empire, we can finally come (in our years of long economic crisis) to a number of financial thrillers, but also to high quality literature, as DeLillo’s  Cosmopolis, or to “barocco” movies,  as  Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. This essay tries to unveil the secrets of the ambiguous fascination exerted on readers and filmgoers by the financial adventurers; and to catch the link  between mathematical algoritms in the strategy of traders, and emotions as fear in the feelings of stock holders.