The Walt Disney Company (DIS)’s Favorite Duck, New York’s First Bank, and the End of Radio

Eight years after its founding, the Bank of New York became one of the first five stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange , when that organization began under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street in 1792. It was the first listed company on the NYSE, and has been the oldest continuously traded company in the United States ever since — it still operates today as BNY Mellon , after merging with Mellon Financial in 2007.

The end of an era
General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) completed its absorption of RCA on Jun. 9, 1986 . The $6.4 billion deal was, at the time, the largest non-oil acquisition in American history, and would create a company with combined revenues of nearly $40 billion per year. It was a fittingly massive reunion between one of the world’s largest industrial concerns and the radio subsidiary it had created in 1919. General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) held at least some control of RCA until 1930, when the conglomerate fully divested its radio assets.

RCA was perhaps the single hottest “tech” stock of the Roaring 20s, as its rise from $1 per share in 1921 to $573 in 1929 resembled the meteoric growth of many dot-com darlings decades later. RCA also resembled some of those dot-com darlings in its ill-timed addition to the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It joined General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) on the index in 1928  and remained until 1932 — just long enough to contribute more to the Dow’s collapse than it did to its rise. This was only the second example of one component owning another on the Dow. After the crash, RCA helped pioneer and popularize television, the medium that eventually pushed radio to the fringes of American life. To avoid obsolescence, RCA invested heavily in television, including both the manufacture of TV sets and the production of broadcast programs through its NBC subsidiary .

Little remains of RCA today. NBC was the only significant RCA asset General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) held onto for any length of time following the merger. The last of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE)’s stake in this broadcasting company passed to Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) in early 2013, when the media giant bought the remaining 49% General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) had held since a complex buyout deal was first put forth in 2009.

The article Disney’s Favorite Duck, New York’s First Bank, and the End of Radio originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Alex Planes holds no financial position in any company mentioned here. Add him on Google+ or follow him on Twitter @TMFBiggles for more insight into markets, history, and technology.The Motley Fool recommends NYSE Euronext (NYSE:NYX) and Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS). The Motley Fool owns shares of General Electric Company and Walt Disney.

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