1848年2月20日
Edward H. Harriman is born in Hempstead, N.Y., to an Episcopal minister and his wife. He starts on Wall Street at age 14, working as an office boy in a brokerage firm. Harriman marries into a railroading family and by age 50 commands the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railways, making him one of the most powerful railroad barons in the world. When Harriman dies in 1908, the Dow Jones Railway Average falls 3%.
1893年2月20日
1893 was a rough time for America's railroads, with seventy-four companies falling prey to bankruptcy before the end of the year. The railroads' woes, as well as the larger financial crisis which engulfed the nation that year, were ushered in on February 20, when the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad fell into receivership. A key transporter for Pennsylvania's anthracite mine industry, the Philadelphia and Reading had run up debts totaling $125 million. At the root of the company's troubles was an ill-fated decision in the 1870s to purchase 30 percent of Pennsylvania's anthracite mine property. The deal forced the Philadelphia and Reading into receivership twice during the 1880s and continued to plague it throughout the early 1890s. By 1893, the company was part of an economic powder keg waiting to go off in the country's face. Along with falling gold reserves, failing companies, and a spiraling stock market, the Philadelphia and Reading's woes helped plunged America into the Panic of 1893. The nation eventually recovered, as did the Philadelphia and Reading, which survived in various forms before fiscal difficulties finally drove it out of business in the early 1970s.
2005年2月20日 商业银行设基金公司试点办法出台
中国人民银行、银监会、证监会20日联合公布并开始实施《商业银行设立基金管理公司试点管理办法》。商业银行可以直接出资设立基金公司;鼓励银行采取股权多元化方式设立;银行可代售所设基金公司发行的基金;按“法人分业”原则建立风险隔离制度。