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Dick Tracy

Dick Tracy is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould. It made its debut on Sunday, October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror, and was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. Gould wrote and drew the strip until 1977, and various artists and writers have continued it.

Dick Tracy has also been the hero in a number of films, including Dick Tracy in which Warren Beatty played the lead in 1990.

Tom De Haven praised Gould's Dick Tracy as an "outrageously funny American Gothic", while Brian Walker described it as a "ghoulishly entertaining creation" which had "gripping stories filled with violence and pathos".

Creation and early years
Basing the character on U.S. federal agent Eliot Ness, Gould drafted an idea for a detective named "Plainclothes Tracy" and sent it to Joseph Medill Patterson of the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. Patterson suggested changing the hero's name to Dick Tracy, and he also put forward an opening storyline in which Tracy joined the police after his girlfriend's father was murdered by robbers. Gould agreed to these ideas, and Dick Tracy was first published on October 4, 1931. The strip was instantly popular and was soon appearing in newspapers across the United States. The strip's popularity also resulted in the creation of numerous Dick Tracy merchandise, including novelizations, toys, and games. In April 1937, a poll of adult comic strip readers in Fortune voted Dick Tracy their third favorite comic strip after Little Orphan Annie and Popeye. However, Dick Tracy was also attacked by some journalists as being too violent, a criticism that would dog Gould throughout his time on the strip.

Evolution of the strip

On January 13, 1946, the two-Way Wrist Radio was introduced; it would become one of the strip's most immediately recognizable icons. This radio wristwatch, worn by Tracy and members of the police force, inspired Martin Cooper's invention of the mobile phone and may have inspired later smartwatches. The two-Way Wrist Radio was upgraded to a two-Way Wrist TV in 1964. This development also led to the introduction of an important supporting character, Diet Smith, an eccentric industrialist who financed the development of this equipment.

In late 1948, a botched security detail led to the death of the semi-regular character Brilliant, the blind inventor of the Two-Way Wrist Radio (among other devices) whereupon Chief Brandon, Dick Tracy's superior on the police force and a presence in the strip since 1931, resigned in shame and Pat Patton was promoted to police chief in Brandon's place on Tracy's recommendation after declining promotion himself, previously having been Tracy's buffoonish partner. A new character was introduced in December of 1948 named Sam Catchem to take Patton's place as Tracy's sidekick.

The 1950s

Gould introduced topical story lines about television, juvenile delinquency, graft, organized crime, and other developments in American life during the 1950s; and elements of soap opera depicted Dick, Tess, and Junior (along with the Tracys' baby daughter Bonnie Braids) at home as a family. Depictions of family life alternated with the story's crime drama, as in the kidnapping of Bonnie Braids by fugitive Crewy Lou, or Junior's girlfriend Model being accidentally killed by her brother.

Gould incurred some controversy when he had Tracy live in an unaccountably ostentatious manner on a police officer's salary, and he responded with a story wherein Tracy was accused of corruption and had to explain the origin of his possessions in detail. In his book-length examination of the strip, Dick Tracy – The Official Biography, Jay Maeder suggested that Gould's critics were unsatisfied by his explanation. Nevertheless, the controversy eventually faded, and the cartoonist reduced exposure to Tracy's home life.

Tracy's cases generally incriminated independent operators rather than organized crime—with a few exceptions, such as Big Boy, a fictionalized version of Al Capone and the strip's first villain. Tracy contended with a series of big-time mobsters in the 1950s, such as the King, George "Mr. Crime" Alpha, Odds Zonn, and Willie "The Fifth" Millyun, after events like the Kefauver Hearings. As Tess faded into the background, Tracy took, as his assistant, the rookie policewoman Lizz Worthington, a photographer who becomes a highly capable police officer, which was a rare female character type for its time.

From 1956 to 1964, the Dick Tracy Sunday page was accompanied by a topper humor strip called The Gravies and drawn by Gould and his assistants.

The 1950s are often considered the strip's artistic and commercial prime, which is thought to come to an end with the 1959 story with the villains The Fifth and his colleague, Flyface. In that story, The Fifth was Gould's criticism of the constitutional right to silence with the gangster invoking that right for any question, which his cohort and legal representation, Flyface, was a caricature of lawyers as a repellent man constantly swarmed by flies as was most of his family as well. In that story, Gould's creative weaknesses began to become more obvious with his vitriolic overlong condemnation of the rights of the accused and any new restraint on police practices no matter how justified while his grotesque style for his villain characters began to alienate contemporary readers enough to prompt newspapers to drop the strip.

Space period
As technology progressed, the methods that Tracy and the police used to track and capture criminals took the form of increasingly fanciful atomic-powered gadgets developed by Diet Smith Industries. This eventually led to the 1960s advent of the Space Coupe, a spacecraft with a magnetic propulsion system. This marked the beginning of the strip's "Space Period," which saw Tracy and friends having adventures on the Moon and meeting Moon Maid, the daughter of the leader of a race of humanoid people living in "Moon Valley" in 1964. After an eventual sharing of technological information, Moon technology became standard issue on Tracy's police force, including air cars, flying cylindrical vehicles. The villains became even more exaggerated in power, resulting in an escalating series of stories that no longer resembled the urban crime drama roots of the strip. During this period, Tracy met famed cartoonist Chet Jade, creator of the comic strip Sawdust, in which the only characters are talking dots.

One of the new characters, Mr. Intro, was only manifested as a disembodied voice. His goal was world domination in the vein of a James Bond villain. Tracy eventually used an atomic laser beam to annihilate Intro and his island base.

Junior married Moon Maid in October 1964. Their daughter Honey Moon Tracy had antennae and magnetic hands. In the spring of 1969, Tracy was offered the post of Chief of Police in Moon Valley. However, he ended up back on Earth when the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 showed that the moon was barren of all life. Many of the accoutrements of the space period stories remained for many years afterward, such as the Space Coupe and much of the high-tech gadgetry. Moon Maid receded from the storyline.

The stories of this period took an increasingly condemnatory tone pertaining to contemporary court decisions concerning the rights of the accused, which often involved Tracy being frustrated by legal technicalities. For example, having caught a gang of diamond thieves red-handed, Tracy was forced to let them walk because he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the diamonds were stolen. As he saw the thieves get off without penalty, Tracy was heard to grumble, "Yes, under today's interpretation of the laws, it seems it's the police who are handcuffed!"

The strip was criticized for advocating violence. For instance, Moon Maid, incensed at a woman being attacked by a criminal and no one helping her in an obvious reference of the Murder of Kitty Genovese, becomes a mysterious murderous vigilante to Dick Tracy's open approval in violation of his profession's ethics In 1968. On June 7 — the day after Senator Robert F. Kennedy was killed by an assassin — the strip's final panel announced, "Violence is golden, when it's used to put down evil." The strip was obviously prepared weeks before the assassination, but the timing of the strip's publication attracted negative attention. Some newspapers dropped the strip as a result. In fact from 1960 to 1974, the strip's newspaper coverage had dropped from 550 to roughly 375

1970s
In the 1970s, Gould modernized Tracy by giving him a longer hairstyle and a mustache and added a hippie sidekick, Groovy Grove, to appeal to young audiences. Groovy's first appearance in print, as it happened, occurred during the same week as the Kent State shootings. Groovy remained with the strip on and off until his death in 1984.

Shortly before his retirement, Gould drew a strip in which Sam, Lizz, and Groovy held Tracy down to shave off his mustache.

At this time, the standard publication size and space of newspaper comics was sharply reduced; for example, the Dick Tracy Sunday strip, which had traditionally been a full-page episode containing 12 panels, was cut in size to a half-page format that offered, at most, eight panels—these new restrictions created challenges for all comic artists.

Plenty family
The Plenty family was a group of goofy redneck yokels headed by the former villain Bob Oscar ("B.O."), along with Gertrude ("Gravel Gertie") Plenty. Gravel Gertie was introduced as the unwitting dupe (accessory) of the villain the Brow, who was on the run from Dick Tracy. The family provided a humorous counterpoint to Tracy's adventures. The Plenty sub-story was decades long and saw Sparkle Plenty grow from an infant to a young married lady, eventually becoming a beautiful fashion model. Sparkle Plenty's 30 May 1947 birth became a significant mainstream media event, with spinoff merchandising and magazine coverage.

The Plenty family appeared with Tracy in a story that occurred in a bank, where "B.O." found a way to prevent thieves from snatching an envelope of money from a counter.

In the 24 April 2011 strip, B.O. and Gertie had a second child, Attitude, a boy who is as ugly as Sparkle is beautiful. His face has yet to be shown.

Crimestoppers' Textbook
Beginning September 11, 1949, the Sunday strip included a frame devoted to a page from the "Crimestoppers' Textbook", a series of handy illustrated hints for the amateur crime-fighter. This was named after a short-lived youth group seen in the strip during the late 1940s, led by Junior Tracy, called "Dick Tracy's Crimestoppers." This feature ended when Gould retired from the strip in 1977, but Max Allan Collins reinstated it, and it is still part of the comic strip. After Gould's retirement, Collins initially replaced the Textbook with "Dick Tracy's Rogues Gallery," a salute to memorable Tracy villains of the past.

After Gould
Chester Gould retired from comics in 1977; his last Dick Tracy strip appeared in print on Sunday, December 25 (Christmas Day) of that same year. The following Monday, Dick Tracy was taken over by Max Allan Collins and longtime Gould assistant Rick Fletcher. Gould's name remained in the byline for a few years after his retirement as a story consultant.

In one of Collins' first stories as the strip's writer, the gangster known as "Big Boy" learned that he was dying and had less than a year to live. Big Boy was still seeking revenge on the plainclothesman who sent him up the river and he wanted to live just long enough to see Tracy's death. He put out an open contract on Tracy's head worth $1 million, knowing that every small-time hood in the city would take a crack at the famous cop for that amount of money. One of the would-be collectors rigged Tracy's car to explode, but inadvertently killed Moon Maid instead of Tracy in the explosion. A funeral strip for Moon Maid explicitly stated that this officially severed all ties between Earth and the Moon in the strip, thus eliminating the last remnants of the Space Period. Honeymoon received a new hairstyle that covered her antennae and she was ultimately phased out of the strip. Junior later married Sparkle Plenty (the daughter of B.O. and 'Gravel' Gertie Plenty), and they had a daughter named Sparkle Plenty Jr. Sparkle had been divorced by her cartoonist husband Vera Aldid, who was thus also removed from the cast. Collins felt that their original marriages were a mistake on Gould's part. In the 1990s, Tracy's son Joseph Flintheart Tracy took on a role similar to Junior's in the earlier strips.

In addition, Collins removed other Gould creations of the 1960s and 1970s (including Groovy Grove, who was gravely wounded in the line of duty and later died in the hospital; Lizz married him before his death). On a more philosophical level, Collins took a generally less cynical view of the justice system than Gould; Tracy came to accept its limitations and requirements as a normal part of the process which he could manage. Extreme technology was phased out, such as the Space Coupe, in favor of more realistic advanced tools such as the Two-Way Wrist Computer in 1987.

New semi-regular characters introduced by Collins and Fletcher included: Dr. Will Carver, a plastic surgeon with underworld ties who often worked on known felons; Wendy Wichel, a smarmy newspaper reporter/editorialist with a strong anti-Tracy bias in her articles; and Lee Ebony, an African-American female detective. Vitamin Flintheart reappeared occasionally as a comic-relief figure, the aged ham actor created by Gould in 1944 who had not been seen in the strip for almost three decades. The Plenty family (B.O., Gravel Gertie, and Sparkle) were also brought back as semi-regulars.

Original villains seen during this period included Angeltop (the revenge-seeking, psychopathic daughter of the slain Flattop), Torcher (whose scheme was arson-for-profit), and Splitscreen (a video pirate). Collins brought back at least one "classic" Gould villain or revenge-seeking family member per year. The revived Gould villains were often provided with full names and marriages, as well as children, and other family connections were developed, bringing more humanity to many of the originally grotesque brutes. "Flattop", particularly, had a number of relatives, all with his characteristic head structure and facial attributes, who turned up one by one to avenge their ancestor on Tracy.

Rick Fletcher died in 1983 and was succeeded by editorial cartoonist Dick Locher, who had assisted Gould on the strip in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Locher was assisted by his son John, who died in 1986.

Max Allan Collins was fired from the strip in 1992, following a financial reorganization of their comic strip holdings, and Tribune staff writer and columnist Mike Kilian took over the writing. Kilian was paid less than half of what Collins was making per strip but continued until his death on October 27, 2005.

2000s
Dick Locher was both author and artist for over three years, beginning on January 9, 2006. On March 16, 2009, Jim Brozman began collaborating with Locher, taking over the drawing duties while Locher continued to write the strip.

In 2005, Tracy was a guest at Blondie and Dagwood's 75th anniversary party in the comic strip Blondie. Later, Dick Tracy appeared in the comic strip Gasoline Alley.

On January 19, 2011, Tribune Media Services announced that Locher was retiring from the strip and handing the reins to artist Joe Staton and writer Mike Curtis. The new creative team has previously worked together on Scooby-Doo, Richie Rich, and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Their first Dick Tracy strip was published March 14, 2011. Until Staton's retirement in October 2021, Staton and Curtis were assisted by Shelley Pleger, who inked and lettered Staton's drawings, along with Shane Fisher, who provides the coloring on the Sunday strips. After Staton's retirement, Pleger took over his artist duties, too, having previously substituted for him in 2017. Pleger was in turn succeeded by Charles Ettinger in February 2024. Chicago-area police sergeant Jim Doherty provided "Crimestopper" captions for the Sunday strips and acted as the feature's technical advisor. Doherty also introduced a new feature, "Tracy's Hall of Fame" (which replaces the "Crimestopper" panel approximately once each month), in which a real-life police officer is profiled and honored. Doherty was replaced in 2016 by police lieutenant Walter Reimer, who introduced the "First Responders Roll of Honor", which honors real-life police officers, firefighters and paramedics who died on duty.

Staton and Curtis reintroduced many of the characters of the 40s through the 60s, including a second Mr. Crime and a reformed Mole, while introducing more deformed and grotesque villains such as Abner Kadaver, Panda and the Jumbler. They also brought back all the gadgets and plot elements of the 1960s space era, starting in early 2013, although the reintroduced Moon Maid is not the same as the original; rather, she is a human genetically modified to resemble the original Moon Maid and, thus, is christened Mysta Chimera and placed under Diet Smith's care. They have also done crossovers, with cameos from Popeye, Brenda Starr, Reporter, Funky Winkerbean, Fearless Fosdick, The Spirit, The Green Hornet, For Better or For Worse, Friday Foster and several long sequences involving Little Orphan Annie.

Awards and honors
Chester Gould won the Reuben Award for the strip in 1959 and 1977.

The Mystery Writers of America honored Gould and his work with a Special Edgar Award in 1980. This was the first time MWA ever honored a comic strip.

In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative postage stamps and postcards.

On May 2, 2011, the Tennessee Senate passed Resolution 30, congratulating Mike Curtis and Joe Staton on their professional accomplishments, including Dick Tracy.

On September 7, 2013, at the Baltimore Comics Convention, Dick Tracy was awarded the Harvey in the "Best Syndicated Strip or Panel" category. Tracy was simultaneously the oldest continually running strip and the first adventure strip ever to win the Harvey Award in this category. On September 6, 2014, Tracy was awarded a second Harvey Award in the newspaper strip category, becoming one of only three strips to win in this category in consecutive years. On September 26, 2015, Tracy won a third Harvey in the same category, becoming one of only three strips to win in three consecutive years.

On November 6, 2016, at their panel at Akron Comicon, Mike Curtis and Joe Staton were each presented with an Akron Comicon Excellence Award. The inscription on the plaques reads: "2016 AKRON COMICON EXCELLENCE AWARD PRESENTED TO MIKE CURTIS AND JOE STATON FOR THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO ONE OF THE LONGEST RUNNING NEWSPAPER STRIPS IN THE HISTORY OF NEWSPAPER COMICS!"

Radio
Dick Tracy had a long run on radio, from 1934 weekdays on NBC's New England stations to the ABC network in 1948. Bob Burlen was the first radio Tracy in 1934, and others heard in the role during the 1930s and 1940s were Barry Thomson, Ned Wever and Matt Crowley. The early shows all had 15-minute episodes.

On CBS, with Sterling Products as sponsor, the serial aired four times a week from February 4, 1935, to July 11, 1935, moving to Mutual from September 30, 1935, to March 24, 1937, with Bill McClintock doing the sound effects. NBC's weekday afternoon run from January 3, 1938, to April 28, 1939, had sound effects by Keene Crockett and was sponsored by Quaker Oats, which brought Dick Tracy into primetime (Saturdays at 7 pm and, briefly, Mondays at 8 pm) with 30-minute episodes from April 29, 1939, to September 30, 1939. The series returned to 15-minute episodes on the ABC Blue Network from March 15, 1943, to July 16, 1948, sponsored by Tootsie Roll, which used the music theme of "Toot Toot, Tootsie" for its 30-minute Saturday ABC series from October 6, 1945, to June 1, 1946. Sound effects on ABC were supplied by Walt McDonough and Al Finelli.

On February 15, 1945, Command Performance broadcast the musical comedy Dick Tracy in B-Flat with Bing Crosby as Tracy, Bob Hope as Flattop, Dinah Shore as Tess Trueheart, among the cast. Dick Tracy's wedding is repeatedly interrupted as Tracy chases after one villain after another. In the strip, his marriage wasn't until 1950 and his honeymoon was disrupted by his going after Wormy.

Recordings
Jim Ameche portrayed Tracy in a two-record set recorded by Mercury Records in 1947. The record sleeves were illustrated with Sunday strips reprinted in black-and-white for children to color.

Comic books
Tracy made his first comic book appearance in 1936 as one of the features included in the first issue of Dell's Popular Comics. These were reprints from the newspaper strip, reconfigured to fit the pages of a comic book, as was the case with most Tracy comic book appearances. Tracy remained a regular feature in Popular Comics through the publication's 21st issue.

The first comic book to feature Tracy exclusively was the Dick Tracy Feature Book, published in May 1937 by David McKay Publications. McKay's Feature Books were magazines that rotated several popular characters from comics strips through 1938. Three more of McKay's Feature Books starred Tracy in the following months.

In 1939, Dell started a comic magazine series called "Black and White Comics," essentially identical to McKay's "Feature Books." Six of the 15 issues featured Tracy. In 1941, Dell's "Black and White" series was replaced by the "Large Feature Books," the third issue of which featured Tracy. As with the McKay series, the Dell "Black and White" and "Large Feature" series were abridged reprints of the strip.

In 1938, Tracy became one of several regular newspaper strips featured in Dell's regular monthly Super Comics, remaining a regular part of that publication until 1948. In 1939, Tracy was the sole feature in the very first issue of Dell's Four-Color Comics, which put out more than 1,300 issues starring hundreds of characters between 1939 and 1962. Tracy was featured in seven more Four-Color issues throughout the 1940s.

Tracy was frequently featured in comic books used as promotional items by various companies. In 1947, for example, Sig Feuchtwanger produced a comic book that was a giveaway prize in boxes of Quaker Puffed Wheat cereal, sponsor of the popular Dick Tracy radio series.

In January 1948, Dell began the first regular Dick Tracy comic book series, Dick Tracy Monthly. This series ultimately ran for 145 issues, the first 24 of which were published by Dell, after which it was picked up by Harvey Comics. Continuing the same numbering, Harvey published the series until 1961. As with most previous Tracy comic book incarnations, these were, with the exception of the last few Dell issues which featured original material, slightly abridged and reconfigured reprints of the newspaper strips.

Dick Tracy was revived in 1986 by Blackthorne Publishing which began as a monthly series (also called Dick Tracy Monthly) but became a weekly one (Dick Tracy Weekly) with issue 25 and lasted 99 issues. Disney produced a series of three issues as a tie-in for their 1990 film. This miniseries, True Hearts and Tommy Guns, was drawn by Kyle Baker and edited by Len Wein. The third issue was a direct adaptation of the film.

In 2018, IDW Publishing announced a new Dick Tracy comic book by Mike Allred (co-writer/cover artist/inker), Lee Allred (co-writer), Rich Tommaso (penciller) and Laura Allred (colorist).

Books
Over the years, many reprints of Dick Tracy newspaper strips have been published. Beginning in 2006, IDW Publishing started the series The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy, reprinting the complete strip in hardcover volumes, eventually being done under their The Library of American Comics imprint. The series concluded with the 29th and final volume being released in December 2020.

Other collections include:
 * The Exploits of Dick Tracy, Detective: The Case of the Brow. Rosdon, hardcover, 1946.
 * The Celebrated Cases of Dick Tracy: 1931–1951. Chelsea House, hardcover, 1970. - Does not include the Sunday strips
 * Dick Tracy: His Greatest Cases No. 1 — Pruneface. Gold Medal, paperback, 1975.
 * Dick Tracy: His Greatest Cases No. 2 — Snowflake and Shaky plus The Black Pearl. Gold Medal, paperback, 1975.
 * Dick Tracy: His Greatest Cases No. 3 — Mrs. Pruneface plus Crime, Inc.. Gold Medal, paperback, 1975.
 * Dick Tracy: The Thirties - Tommy Guns and Hard Times. Chelsea House, hardcover, 1978.
 * U.S. Classics Series - Dick Tracy: Tracy's Wartime Memories. Ken Pierce Books, paperback, 1986.
 * The Complete Max Collins/Rick Fletcher Dick Tracy. Dragon Lady Press, paperback.
 * #1: 50th Anniversary Dick Tracy. June 1986.
 * #2: Who Shot Pat Patton?. February 1987.
 * #3: The Ghost of Itchy. August 1987.
 * Dick Tracy: Meets Angeltop. Berkeley, paperback, 1990.
 * Dick Tracy #2: Meets the Punks. Berkeley, paperback, 1990.
 * The Dick Tracy Casebook: Favorite Adventures 1931-1990. St. Martin's Press, paperback, 1990.
 * Dick Tracy's Fiendish Foes! A 60th Anniversary Celebration. St. Martin's Press, paperback, 1991.
 * Dick Tracy: Colorful Cases of the 1930s, Sunday Press Books, hardcover, 2016. ISBN
 * Dick Tracy: The Collins Casefiles, v1,2,3, Checker Books, 2003–2004.

Other editions:
 * The first Big Little Book was a Dick Tracy title and many subsequent ones in the series followed. Some were reprintings of newspaper strips and some alternate between text and original black-and white drawings.
 * Dick Tracy and the Spider Gang, a novelization of the Republic serial, Big Little Book #1446, the pages alternate between text and black-and-white photos from the movies.
 * Dick Tracy, Ace Detective. Whitman, hardcover, 1943.
 * Dick Tracy Meets the Night Crawler. Whitman, hardcover, 1945.
 * Dick Tracy and the Woo Woo Sisters, Dell, unnumbered paperback with a pictorial back cover but not a mapback, 1947.

Film serials
Dick Tracy made his film debut in Dick Tracy (1937), a 15-chapter movie serial by Republic Pictures starring Ralph Byrd. The Spider Gang was on the loose, tired of Dick Tracy's cunning skills. Through the 15-chapter serial, 15 different cases were solved, all plots by the Spider Gang. Dick Tracy was also in search of his missing brother, Gordon Tracy (Carleton Young). The Dick Tracy character proved very popular, and a second serial, Dick Tracy Returns, appeared in 1938 (reissued in 1948). Dick Tracy's G-Men was released in 1939 (reissued in 1955). The last was Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc. in 1941 (reissued as Dick Tracy vs. the Phantom Empire in 1952).

The sequels were produced under an interpretation of the contract for the first Dick Tracy serial, which gave license for "a series or serial". As a result, Chester Gould received no further money for the sequel serials.

Dick Tracy is portrayed as an FBI agent, or "G-Man", based in California rather than as a detective in the police force of a Midwestern city resembling Chicago, and, aside from himself and Junior, no characters from the strip appear in any of the four serials.

However, comic relief sidekick "Mike McGurk" bears some resemblance to Tracy's partner from the strip, Pat Patton; Tracy's secretary, Gwen Andrews (played by several actresses in the course of the series, including Jennifer Jones under a variation of her real name, Phyllis Isley), provides the same kind of feminine interest as Tess Trueheart; and FBI Director Clive Anderson (Francis X. Bushman and others) is the same kind of avuncular superior as Chief Brandon.

The first serial, Dick Tracy, is now in the public domain.

Early feature films
Four years after the release of the final Republic serial, Dick Tracy would headline the first of four feature films, produced by RKO Radio Pictures. Dick Tracy (a.k.a. Dick Tracy, Detective) (1945) was followed by Dick Tracy vs. Cueball in 1946, both with Morgan Conway as Tracy. Ralph Byrd returned for the last two features, both released in 1947: Dick Tracy's Dilemma and Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome. Gruesome is probably the best known of the four, with the villain portrayed by Boris Karloff. All four movies had many of the visual features associated with film noir: dramatic, shadowy photographic compositions, with many exterior scenes filmed at night (at the RKO Encino movie ranch). Lyle Latell co-starred in all four films as Pat Patton. Anne Jeffreys played Tess Trueheart in the first two, succeeded by Kay Christopher and finally Anne Gwynne; Ian Keith joined the cast as the actor Vitamin Flintheart for two films; Joseph Crehan played Chief Brandon. RKO stocked the films with familiar faces, creating a veritable rogues' gallery of characters: Mike Mazurki as Splitface, Dick Wessel as Cueball, Esther Howard as Filthy Flora, Jack Lambert as hook-handed villain the Claw; baldheaded, pop-eyed Milton Parsons, mild-mannered Byron Foulger, dangerous Trevor Bardette and pockmarked, gently sinister Skelton Knaggs.

1990 feature film
Warren Beatty produced, directed, co-wrote (uncredited), and starred in the 1990 film Dick Tracy, whose supporting cast includes Al Pacino, Madonna, Glenne Headly, and Charlie Korsmo. Dick Tracy depicts the detective's romantic relationships with Breathless Mahoney and Tess Trueheart, as well as his conflicts with crime boss Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice and his henchmen. Tracy also begins fostering a young street urchin named Kid. Development of the film began in the early 1980s with Tom Mankiewicz assigned to write the script. The screenplay was written instead by Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr., both of Top Gun fame. The project also went through directors (Steven Spielberg, John Landis, Walter Hill, and Richard Benjamin) before the arrival of Beatty. It was filmed mainly at Universal Studios. Danny Elfman was hired to compose the score, and the film's music and songs were featured on three separate soundtrack albums.

Republic Pictures

 * 1) Dick Tracy (1937, serial, 15 episodes, starring Ralph Byrd)
 * 2) Dick Tracy (1937, feature version of the above serial, starring Ralph Byrd)
 * 3) Dick Tracy Returns (1938 serial, 15 episodes starring Ralph Byrd)
 * 4) Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939, serial, 15 episodes, starring Ralph Byrd)
 * 5) Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc.(1941, serial, 15 episodes, starring Ralph Byrd)

RKO Radio Pictures

 * 1) Dick Tracy (1945, film starring Morgan Conway)
 * 2) Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946, film starring Morgan Conway)
 * 3) Dick Tracy's Dilemma (1947, film starring Ralph Byrd)
 * 4) Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947, film starring Ralph Byrd)

Touchstone Pictures

 * Dick Tracy (1990, film starring Warren Beatty)

Television

 * Dick Tracy (1950–1951) - live action television series starring Ralph Byrd
 * The Dick Tracy Show (1961) - animated television series with various voices including Everett Sloane and Mel Blanc
 * The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, "Dick Tracy and the Mob" (1965 animated half-hour TV episode with the voices of Everett Sloane and Jim Backus
 * Dick Tracy (1967) - television pilot starring Ray MacDonnell
 * Archie's TV Funnies (1971) - features original Dick Tracy mini-episodes using the classic villains and cast from the strip, more faithful in tone than the earlier animated series
 * Dick Tracy Special (2010) - thirty-minute special featuring Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty) being interviewed by Leonard Maltin
 * Dick Tracy Special - Tracy Zooms In (2023) - twenty-five-minute special featuring a Zoom conversation between Tracy (Beatty), Maltin and Ben Mankiewicz

The strip has had limited exposure on television with one early live-action series, two animated series, one unsold pilot that was never picked up, and a proposed TV series currently held up in litigation.

First live action series
Ralph Byrd, who had played the square-jawed sleuth in all four Republic movie serials and two of the RKO feature-length films, reprised his role in a short-lived live action Dick Tracy series that ran on ABC from 1950 to 1951. Additional episodes intended for first-run syndication continued to be produced into 1952. Produced by P. K. Palmer, who also wrote many of the scripts, the series often featured Gould-created villains such as Flattop, Shaky, the Mole, Breathless Mahoney, Heels Beals and Influence, all of whom appeared on film for the first time on this series. Other cast members included Joe Devlin as Sam Catchem, Angela Greene as Tess Tracy (née Trueheart), Martin Dean as Junior, and Pierre Watkin as Chief Patton. Criticized for its violence, the series remained popular. It ended, not in response to criticism, but because of Byrd's unexpected, premature death in 1952. The series was filmed on a low budget, with many long hours and a rushed shooting schedule. Many episodes of this series have been released on various public domain TV detective DVD sets.

Animated cartoons
The first cartoon series was produced from 1960 to 1961 by UPA. Tracy employed a series of cartoon-like subordinate flatfoots to fight crime each week, contacting them on his two-way wrist radio. Everett Sloane voiced Tracy and supporting characters and villains were voiced by Jerry Hausner, Mel Blanc, Benny Rubin, Johnny Coons, Paul Frees and others. These subordinates included "Go-Go" Gomez, Joe Jitsu, Hemlock Holmes and the Retouchables, and Officer Heap O'Calorie. 130 five-minute cartoons were designed and packaged for syndication, usually intended for local children's shows.

UPA was also the production company behind the Mr. Magoo cartoons, so it was possible for them to arrange a meeting between Tracy and Magoo in a 1965 episode of the season-long TV series The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo. In the episode "Dick Tracy and the Mob", Tracy persuades Magoo (a well-known actor in the context of the Famous Adventures series) to impersonate an international hit man named Squinty Eyes, who he resembles, and infiltrate a gang of criminals made up of Flattop, Pruneface, Itchy, Mumbles and others. Unlike the earlier animated Tracy shorts, this longer episode was played relatively straight, with Tracy getting much more screen time. Pitting Tracy against a coalition of several of his foes was adopted more than two decades later in the 1990 film.

A second cartoon series was produced in 1971 and was a feature in Archie's TV Funnies, produced by Filmation. It adhered more closely to the comic strip, although it was hampered by cruder animation than the UPA shorts, typical of the studio's production standards.

Live action television pilot
William Dozier produced a pilot for a live action Dick Tracy series in 1967 starring Ray MacDonnell in the title role. (Dozier was the producer responsible for the 1966 Batman TV series.) The pilot was "The Plot to Kill NATO", featuring "Special Guest Villain" Victor Buono as 'Mr. Memory'. The series was not purchased by either ABC or NBC. Eve Plumb, who would later find fame as Jan Brady on The Brady Bunch, is credited as Bonnie Braids, who does not appear in the pilot, nor does Davey Davison as Tess.

Licensed products
In the 1960s, Aurora produced a plastic model kit of Dick Tracy sliding down a fire escape ladder into an alley, in hot pursuit with gun drawn. A Dick Tracy Space Coupe model came next. Both have been reissued by Polar Lights. Also in the market were Mattel's Dick Tracy range of toy guns.

In 1990, Playmates Toys released a line of action figures called Dick Tracy: Coppers and Gangsters to coincide with the Dick Tracy movie. The figures were 5" tall, stylized with exaggerated comic looks and was accompanied by many accessories. Two figures in the line had limited availability; Steve the Tramp (called "The Tramp" on the package front) was pulled from the assortment after complaints of portrayal of a homeless person as a criminal. The figure of "The Blank" was added to the assortment well after the film's release to keep the secret of the identity of the character. As a result, only limited quantities of these two figures made it to store shelves.

Various distinct video games tied in with the film were developed. Titus Software did versions many platforms including Amiga, Commodore and MS-DOS. Dick Tracy is a side scrolling action shooting game. The player controls Dick Tracy through five stages. The Commodore 64 version is infamous for being released in an unfinished state (minimal animation for the main character, missing headlines in the linking screens, flick scrolling), and scored Commodore Format magazine's lowest ever review score of 11%  There were also games made for the Nintendo Entertainment System (1990), Master System (1990), Sega Genesis (1990), and Game Boy (1991)., and a graphic adventure for MS-DOS and the Amiga.

In 2009, Shocker Toys released a monochromatic Dick Tracy action figure as an exclusive product for the San Diego Comic-Con. The figure appears in a suit with two-way wrist radio. There was also a variant figure released of Dick Tracy in his signature trench coat and fedora with a tommy gun accessory.

Rights to adapt in other media
Media outlets reported a legal battle being waged over rights to the Dick Tracy character. Warren Beatty announced plans to make a sequel to his 1990 movie. At the same time, television producers announced plans for a new Dick Tracy TV series. Both sides claimed that they were the legal owners of the rights to Dick Tracy. In May 2005, Beatty sued the Tribune Company, claiming he has owned the rights to the Dick Tracy character since 1985. Pressure from Beatty led to the cancellation of a proposed collaboration between artist Mike Oeming and writer Brian Bendis on a new serialized Dick Tracy comic.

The lawsuit was resolved in Beatty's favor, with a U.S. District judge ruling that Beatty did everything contractually required of him to keep the rights to the character.

In popular culture

 * Fearless Fosdick is a long-running parody of Dick Tracy that appeared intermittently as a strip-within-a-strip in Al Capp's satirical hillbilly comic strip, Li'l Abner (1934–1977).
 * Gilbert Shelton parodied Dick Tracy as "Tricky Prickears" in his Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic strips.
 * The artist Jess Collins used an X-Acto knife and rubber cement to reassemble Gould's strip into Tricky Cad (an anagram of "Dick Tracy"). Gould threatened to sue if the Tricky Cad collages were published.
 * The UPA version of Dick Tracy (though already having appeared in the novel) was scheduled to appear as a cameo in the deleted scene "Acme's Funeral" from the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
 * Calvin and Hobbes had three segments parodying the strip, where Calvin imagines himself as an alter-ego named Tracer Bullet. Bill Watterson acknowledged this was inspired by Dick Tracy.
 * In Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man, a 'trial' is held on thin evidence. The protagonist asks, "Is everyone reading Dick Tracy these days?"
 * Daffy Duck parodied Dick Tracy as "Duck Twacy" in the 1946 Looney Tunes cartoon The Great Piggy Bank Robbery.
 * Dick Tracy was parodied by the adult animated stop motion sketch comedy TV show Robot Chicken in the season 3 episode "Rabbits on a Roller Coaster".
 * Dick Tracy was parodied in 1990 in the Season 8 episode of Alvin and the Chipmunks, as "Chip Tracy".
 * A sample of Dick Tracy speaking is used at the beginning of the song "Amphibious" by Drone, released on White Peach Records in 2019.

title: Dick Tracy


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Key Word in Context

Key Word In Context (KWIC) is the most common format for concordance lines. The term KWIC was coined by Hans Peter Luhn. The system was based on a concept called keyword in titles, which was first proposed for Manchester libraries in 1864 by Andrea Crestadoro.

A KWIC index is formed by sorting and aligning the words within an article title to allow each word (except the stop words) in titles to be searchable alphabetically in the index. It was a useful indexing method for technical manuals before computerized full text search became common.

For example, a search query including all of the words in an example definition ("KWIC is an acronym for Key Word In Context, the most common format for concordance lines") and the Wikipedia slogan in English ("the free encyclopedia"), searched against a Wikipedia page, might yield a KWIC index as follows. A KWIC index usually uses a wide layout to allow the display of maximum 'in context' information (not shown in the following example).

A KWIC index is a special case of a permuted index. This term refers to the fact that it indexes all cyclic permutations of the headings. Books composed of many short sections with their own descriptive headings, most notably collections of manual pages, often ended with a permuted index section, allowing the reader to easily find a section by any word from its heading. This practice, also known as Key Word Out of Context (KWOC), is no longer common.

References in literature
''Note: The first reference does not show the KWIC index unless you pay to view the paper. The second reference does not even list the paper at all.''
 * David L. Parnas uses a KWIC index as an example on how to perform modular design in his paper On the Criteria To Be Used in Decomposing Systems into Modules, available as an ACM Classic Paper
 * Christopher D. Manning and Hinrich Schütze describe a KWIC index and computer concordancing in section 1.4.5 of their book Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1999. ISBN 9780262133609. They cite an article from H.P. Luhn from 1960, "Key word-in-context index for technical literature (kwic index)".
 * According to Rev. Gerard O'Connor's Concordantia et Indices Missalium Romanorum, "Most of the concordances produced in recent times and with the aid of computer software use both the KWIC (keyword in context) and KWICn (keyword in center) formats, which lists the keyword, usually highlighted in bold text in a consistent position, within a limited amount of context text, i.e. three [or] four words of the text prior to the keyword and the same amount of text following. This format is extremely useful in that the keyword is easily identified together with its context. ... The Concordance of the Roman Missal is produced in both the KWIC and KWICn formats and is noteworthy in that each word form is listed as it appears in the text, that is, it is un-lemmatized."

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Key Word in Context


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Accrual bond

An accrual bond is a fixed-interest bond that is issued at its face value and repaid at the end of the maturity period together with the accrued interest. In Germany, the accrued interest is compounded. In contrast to zero-coupon bonds, accrual bonds have a clearly stated coupon rate.

title: Accrual bond


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Aftermarket

Aftermarket may refer to:
 * Aftermarket (merchandise), any market where customers who buy one product or service are likely to buy a related, follow-on product
 * Automotive aftermarket, the addition of non-factory parts, accessories and upgrades to a motor vehicle also to include removal of parts after vehicle is placed on market
 * Aftermarket (finance), or secondary market in financial parlance, the trading of securities that have already been issued
 * The market for parts that are no longer made, see new old stock

二级市场

title: Aftermarket


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Allotment

Allotment may refer to:

 * Allotment (Dawes Act), an area of land held by the US Government for the benefit of an individual Native American, under the Dawes Act of 1887
 * Allotment (finance), a method by which a company allocates over-subscribed shares
 * Allotment (gardening), an area of land rented out for non-commercial gardening or farming
 * Allotment (travel industry), a block of pre-negotiated carrier seats or hotel rooms held by a travel organizer
 * Allotment of the Promised Land by Joshua; see Book of Joshua
 * Sortition or allotment, a method of selection by lottery
 * The Allotment, a 1988 book by Colin Ward

title: Allotment


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Subscription (finance)

Subscription refers to the process of investors signing up and committing to invest in a financial instrument, before the actual closing of the purchase. The term comes from the Latin word subscribere.

Praenumeration
An early form of subscription was praenumeration, a common business practice in the 18th-century book trade in Germany. The publisher offered to sell a book that was planned but had not yet been printed, usually at a discount, so as to cover their costs in advance. The business practice was particularly common with magazines, helping to determine in advance how many subscribers there would be. Praenumeration is similar to the recent crowdfunding financing model.

Subscription agreement
Subscription to new issues can be covered by a subscription agreement, legally committing the investor to invest in the financial instrument, and committing the company to certain obligations and warranties. In some jurisdictions, it is possible for the issuer and subscriber to use a template subscription agreement as the basis of this agreement, although bespoke contract drafting by a qualified specialist may be required in more complex cases.

Subscription period
When a new security is to be issued, investors typically have two weeks to submit their subscription orders. At the end of this subscription period, the issuer announces the offering price and the method of allotment.

Allotment
Allotment is a method of distributing securities to investors when an issue has been oversubscribed. At the end of the subscription period, the demand for a new issue can exceed the number of shares or bonds being issued. In such cases, the underwriting bank allots the securities with the approval of the issuer, either by lottery or on the basis of a formula. An allotment formula usually takes into account the issuer's preferred target investor groups.

Oversubscription
A funding round is oversubscribed when the company has obtained funding commitments from investors that, in aggregate, amount to more money than the company needs or intends to raise. The term may be used informally to describe a state where there is more money available than the company needs.

title: Subscription (finance)


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Capital market

A capital market is a financial market in which long-term debt (over a year) or equity-backed securities are bought and sold, in contrast to a money market where short-term debt is bought and sold. Capital markets channel the wealth of savers to those who can put it to long-term productive use, such as companies or governments making long-term investments. Financial regulators like Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Bank of England (BoE) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) oversee capital markets to protect investors against fraud, among other duties.

Transactions on capital markets are generally managed by entities within the financial sector or the treasury departments of governments and corporations, but some can be accessed directly by the public. As an example, in the United States, any American citizen with an internet connection can create an account with TreasuryDirect and use it to buy bonds in the primary market. However, sales to individuals form only a small fraction of the total volume of bonds sold. Various private companies provide browser-based platforms that allow individuals to buy shares and sometimes even bonds in the secondary markets. There are many thousands of such systems, most serving only small parts of the overall capital markets. Entities hosting the systems include investment banks, stock exchanges and government departments. Physically, the systems are hosted all over the world, though they tend to be concentrated in financial centres like London, New York, and Hong Kong.

Definition
A capital market can be either a primary market or a secondary market. In a primary market, new stock or bond issues are sold to investors, often via a mechanism known as underwriting. The main entities seeking to raise long-term funds on the primary capital markets are governments (which may be municipal, local or national) and business enterprises (companies). Governments issue only bonds, whereas companies often issue both equity and bonds. The main entities purchasing the bonds or stock include pension funds, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, and less commonly wealthy individuals and investment banks trading on their own behalf. In the secondary market, existing securities are sold and bought among investors or traders, usually on an exchange, over-the-counter, or elsewhere. The existence of secondary markets increases the willingness of investors in primary markets, as they know they are likely to be able to swiftly cash out their investments if the need arises.

A second important division falls between the stock markets (for equity securities, also known as shares, where investors acquire ownership of companies) and the bond markets (where investors become creditors).

Versus money markets
The money markets are used for the raising of short-term finance, sometimes for loans that are expected to be paid back as early as overnight. In contrast, the "capital markets" are used for the raising of long-term finance, such as the purchase of shares/equities, or for loans that are not expected to be fully paid back for at least a year.

Funds borrowed from money markets are typically used for general operating expenses, to provide liquid assets for brief periods. For example, a company may have inbound payments from customers that have not yet cleared, but need immediate cash to pay its employees. When a company borrows from the primary capital markets, often the purpose is to invest in additional physical capital goods, which will be used to help increase its income. It can take many months or years before the investment generates sufficient return to pay back its cost, and hence the finance is long term.

Together, money markets and capital markets form the financial markets, as the term is narrowly understood. The capital market is concerned with long-term finance. In the widest sense, it consists of a series of channels through which the savings of the community are made available for industrial and commercial enterprises and public authorities.

Capital market versus bank loans
Regular bank lending is not usually classed as a capital market transaction, even when loans are extended for a period longer than a year. First, regular bank loans are not securitized (i.e. they do not take the form of a resaleable security like a share or bond that can be traded on the markets). Second, lending from banks is more heavily regulated than capital market lending. Third, bank depositors tend to be more risk-averse than capital market investors. These three differences all act to limit institutional lending as a source of finance. Two additional differences, this time favoring lending by banks, are that banks are more accessible for small and medium-sized companies, and that they have the ability to create money as they lend. In the 20th century, most company finance apart from share issues was raised by bank loans. But since about 1980 there has been an ongoing trend for disintermediation, where large and creditworthy companies have found they effectively have to pay out less interest if they borrow directly from capital markets rather than from banks. The tendency for companies to borrow from capital markets instead of banks has been especially strong in the United States. According to the Financial Times, capital markets overtook bank lending as the leading source of long-term finance in 2009, which reflects the risk aversion and bank regulation in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

Compared to in the United States, companies in the European Union have a greater reliance on bank lending for funding. Efforts to enable companies to raise more funding through capital markets are being coordinated through the EU's Capital Markets Union initiative.

Government on primary markets

When a government wants to raise long-term finance it will often sell bonds in the capital markets. In the 20th and early 21st centuries, many governments would use investment banks to organize the sale of their bonds. The leading bank would underwrite the bonds, and would often head up a syndicate of brokers, some of whom might be based in other investment banks. The syndicate would then sell to various investors. For developing countries, a multilateral development bank would sometimes provide an additional layer of underwriting, resulting in risk being shared between the investment bank(s), the multilateral organization, and the end investors. However, since 1997 it has been increasingly common for governments of the larger nations to bypass investment banks by making their bonds directly available for purchase online. Many governments now sell most of their bonds by computerized auction. Typically, large volumes are put up for sale in one go; a government may only hold a small number of auctions each year. Some governments will also sell a continuous stream of bonds through other channels. The biggest single seller of debt is the U.S. government; there are usually several transactions for such sales every second, which corresponds to the continuous updating of the U.S. real-time debt clock.

Company on primary markets
When a company wants to raise money for long-term investment, one of its first decisions is whether to do so by issuing bonds or shares. If it chooses shares, it avoids increasing its debt, and in some cases the new shareholders may also provide non-monetary help, such as expertise or useful contacts. On the other hand, a new issue of shares will dilute the ownership rights of the existing shareholders, and if they gain a controlling interest, the new shareholders may even replace senior managers. From an investor's point of view, shares offer the potential for higher returns and capital gains if the company does well. Conversely, bonds are safer if the company does poorly, as they are less prone to severe falls in price, and in the event of bankruptcy, bond owners may be paid something, while shareholders will receive nothing.

When a company raises finance from the primary market, the process is more likely to involve face-to-face meetings than other capital market transactions. Whether they choose to issue bonds or shares, companies will typically enlist the services of an investment bank to mediate between themselves and the market. A team from the investment bank often meets with the company's senior managers to ensure their plans are sound. The bank then acts as an underwriter, and will arrange for a network of brokers to sell the bonds or shares to investors. This second stage is usually done mostly through computerized systems, though brokers will often phone up their favored clients to advise them of the opportunity. Companies can avoid paying fees to investment banks by using a direct public offering, though this is not a common practice as it incurs other legal costs and can take up considerable management time.

Secondary market trading

Most capital market transactions take place on the secondary market. On the primary market, each security can be sold only once, and the process to create batches of new shares or bonds is often lengthy due to regulatory requirements. On the secondary markets, there is no limit to the number of times a security can be traded, and the process is usually very quick. Transactions on the secondary market do not directly raise finance, but they do make it easier for companies and governments to raise finance on the primary market, as investors know that if they want to get their money back quickly, they will usually be easily able to re-sell their securities. Sometimes, however, secondary capital market transactions can have a negative effect on the primary borrowers: for example, if a large proportion of investors try to sell their bonds, this can push up the yields for future issues from the same entity. An extreme example occurred shortly after Bill Clinton began his first term as President of the United States; Clinton was forced to abandon some of the spending increases he had promised in his election campaign due to pressure from the bond markets. In the 21st century, several governments have tried to lock in as much as possible of their borrowing into long-dated bonds, so they are less vulnerable to pressure from the markets. Following the financial crisis of 2007–08, the introduction of quantitative easing further reduced the ability of private actors to push up the yields of government bonds, at least for countries with a central bank able to engage in substantial open market operations.

A variety of different players are active in the secondary markets. Individual investors account for a small proportion of trading, though their share has slightly increased; in the 20th century it was mostly only a few wealthy individuals who could afford an account with a broker, but accounts are now much cheaper and accessible over the internet. There are now numerous small traders who can buy and sell on the secondary markets using platforms provided by brokers which are accessible via web browsers. When such an individual trades on the capital markets, it will often involve a two-stage transaction. First they place an order with their broker, then the broker executes the trade. If the trade can be done on an exchange, the process will often be fully automated. If a dealer needs to manually intervene, this will often mean a larger fee. Traders in investment banks will often make deals on their bank's behalf, as well as executing trades for their clients. Investment banks will often have a division (or department) called "capital markets": staff in this division try to keep aware of the various opportunities in both the primary and secondary markets, and will advise major clients accordingly. Pension and sovereign wealth funds tend to have the largest holdings, though they tend to buy only the highest grade (safest) types of bonds and shares, and some of them do not trade all that frequently. According to a 2012 Financial Times article, hedge funds are increasingly making most of the short-term trades in large sections of the capital market (like the UK and US stock exchanges), which is making it harder for them to maintain their historically high returns, as they are increasingly finding themselves trading with each other rather than with less sophisticated investors.

There are several ways to invest in the secondary market without directly buying shares or bonds. A common method is to invest in mutual funds or exchange-traded funds. It is also possible to buy and sell derivatives that are based on the secondary market; one of the most common type of these is contracts for difference – these can provide rapid profits, but can also cause buyers to lose more money than they originally invested.

Size
All figures given are in billions of US$ and are sourced to the IMF. There is no universally recognized standard for measuring all of these figures, so other estimates may vary. A GDP column is included as a comparison.

Forecasting and analyses
A great deal of work goes into analysing capital markets and predicting their future movements. This includes academic study; work from within the financial industry for the purposes of making money and reducing risk; and work by governments and multilateral institutions for the purposes of regulation and understanding the impact of capital markets on the wider economy. Methods range from the gut instincts of experienced traders, to various forms of stochastic calculus and algorithms such as Stratonovich-Kalman-Bucy filtering algorithm.

Capital controls
Capital controls are measures imposed by a state's government aimed at managing capital account transactions – in other words, capital market transactions where one of the counter-parties involved is in a foreign country. Whereas domestic regulatory authorities try to ensure that capital market participants trade fairly with each other, and sometimes to ensure institutions like banks do not take excessive risks, capital controls aim to ensure that the macroeconomic effects of the capital markets do not have a negative impact. Most advanced nations like to use capital controls sparingly if at all, as in theory allowing markets freedom is a win-win situation for all involved: investors are free to seek maximum returns, and countries can benefit from investments that will develop their industry and infrastructure. However, sometimes capital market transactions can have a net negative effect: for example, in a financial crisis, there can be a mass withdrawal of capital, leaving a nation without sufficient foreign-exchange reserves to pay for needed imports. On the other hand, if too much capital is flowing into a country, it can increase inflation and the value of the nation's currency, making its exports uncompetitive. Countries like India employ capital controls to ensure that their citizens' money is invested at home rather than abroad.

title: Capital market


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Primary market

The primary market is the part of the capital market that deals with the issuance and sale of securities to purchasers directly by the issuer, with the issuer being paid the proceeds. A primary market means the market for new issues of securities, as distinguished from the secondary market, where previously issued securities are bought and sold. A market is primary if the proceeds of sales go to the issuer of the securities sold. Buyers buy securities that were not previously traded.

Concept
In a primary market, companies, governments, or public sector institutions can raise funds through bond issues, and corporations can raise capital through the sale of new stock through an initial public offering (IPO). This is often done through an investment bank or underwriter or finance syndicate of securities dealers. The process of selling new shares to buyers is called underwriting. Dealers earn a commission that is commonly built into the price of the security offering, though it can be found in the prospectus.

IPOs are not the only way new securities are issued. Publicly traded companies can issue new shares in what is called a primary issue of debt or stock, which involves the issue by a corporation of its own debt or new stock directly to buyers like pension funds, or to private investors and shareholders.

Since the securities are issued directly by the company to its buyers, the company receives the money and issues new security certificates to the buyers. The primary market plays the crucial function of facilitating capital formation within the economy. The securities issued at the primary market can be issued in face value, premium value, or at par value.

Primary markets create long-term instruments through which corporate entities raise funds from the capital market. It is also known as the New Issue Market (NIM).

Once issued, the securities typically trade thereafter on a secondary market such as a stock exchange, bond market, or derivatives exchange.

Raising funds
Corporate entities raise funds from the primary market in three ways:

 * 1) Public issue: a stock exchange lists the securities, and the corporation raises funds through initial public offering (IPO).
 * 2) Rights issue: existing shareholders are offered more shares at a discounted price and on a pro rata basis.
 * 3) Preferential allotment: a corporation issues shares at a price which may or may not be related to the current market price of the same security.

title: Primary market


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Financial market

A financial market is a market in which people trade financial securities and derivatives at low transaction costs. Some of the securities include stocks and bonds, raw materials and precious metals, which are known in the financial markets as commodities.

The term "market" is sometimes used for what are more strictly exchanges, organizations that facilitate the trade in financial securities, e.g., a stock exchange or commodity exchange. This may be a physical location (such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), London Stock Exchange (LSE), Johannesburg Stock Exchange JSE Limited (JSE), Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) or an electronic system such as NASDAQ. Much trading of stocks takes place on an exchange; still, corporate actions (merger, spinoff) are outside an exchange, while any two companies or people, for whatever reason, may agree to sell the stock from the one to the other without using an exchange.

Trading of currencies and bonds is largely on a bilateral basis, although some bonds trade on a stock exchange, and people are building electronic systems for these as well. There are also global initiatives such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10 which has a target to improve regulation and monitoring of global financial markets.

Types of financial markets
Within the financial sector, the term "financial markets" is often used to refer just to the markets that are used to raise finances. For long term finance, they are usually called the capital markets; for short term finance, they are usually called money markets. The money market deals in short-term loans, generally for a period of a year or less. Another common use of the term is as a catchall for all the markets in the financial sector, as per examples in the breakdown below.

The capital markets may also be divided into primary markets and secondary markets. Newly formed (issued) securities are bought or sold in primary markets, such as during initial public offerings. Secondary markets allow investors to buy and sell existing securities. The transactions in primary markets exist between issuers and investors, while secondary market transactions exist among investors.
 * Capital markets which consist of:
 * Stock markets, which provide financing through the issuance of shares or common stock, and enable the subsequent trading thereof.
 * Bond markets, which provide financing through the issuance of bonds, and enable the subsequent trading thereof.
 * Commodity markets, The commodity market is a market that trades in the primary economic sector rather than manufactured products, Soft commodities is a term generally referred as to commodities that are grown, rather than mined such as crops (corn, wheat, soybean, fruit and vegetable), livestock, cocoa, coffee and sugar and Hard commodities is a term generally referred as to commodities that are mined such as gold, gemstones and other metals and generally drilled such as oil and gas.
 * Money markets, which provide short term debt financing and investment.
 * Derivatives markets, which provide instruments for the management of financial risk.
 * Futures markets, which provide standardized forward contracts for trading products at some future date; see also forward market.
 * Foreign exchange markets, which facilitate the trading of foreign exchange.
 * Cryptocurrency market which facilitate the trading of digital assets and financial technologies.
 * Spot market
 * Interbank lending market

Liquidity is a crucial aspect of securities that are traded in secondary markets. Liquidity refers to the ease with which a security can be sold without a loss of value. Securities with an active secondary market mean that there are many buyers and sellers at a given point in time. Investors benefit from liquid securities because they can sell their assets whenever they want; an illiquid security may force the seller to get rid of their asset at a large discount.

Raising capital
Financial markets attract funds from investors and channels them to corporations—they thus allow corporations to finance their operations and achieve growth. Money markets allow firms to borrow funds on a short-term basis, while capital markets allow corporations to gain long-term funding to support expansion (known as maturity transformation).

Without financial markets, borrowers would have difficulty finding lenders themselves. Intermediaries such as banks, Investment Banks, and Boutique Investment Banks can help in this process. Banks take deposits from those who have money to save on the form of savings a/c. They can then lend money from this pool of deposited money to those who seek to borrow. Banks popularly lend money in the form of loans and mortgages.

More complex transactions than a simple bank deposit require markets where lenders and their agents can meet borrowers and their agents, and where existing borrowing or lending commitments can be sold on to other parties. A good example of a financial market is a stock exchange. A company can raise money by selling shares to investors and its existing shares can be bought or sold.

The following table illustrates where financial markets fit in the relationship between lenders and borrowers:

Lenders
The lender temporarily gives money to somebody else, on the condition of getting back the principal amount together with some interest or profit or charge.

Individuals and doubles
Many individuals are not aware that they are lenders, but almost everybody does lend money in many ways. A person lends money when he or she:

 * Puts money in a savings account at a bank
 * Contributes to a pension plan
 * Pays premiums to an insurance company
 * Invests in government bonds

Companies
Companies tend to be lenders of capital. When companies have surplus cash that is not needed for a short period of time, they may seek to make money from their cash surplus by lending it via short term markets called money markets. Alternatively, such companies may decide to return the cash surplus to their shareholders (e.g. via a share repurchase or dividend payment).

Banks
Banks can be lenders themselves as they are able to create new debt money in the form of deposits.

Borrowers

 * Individuals borrow money via bankers' loans for short term needs or longer term mortgages to help finance a house purchase.
 * Companies borrow money to aid short term or long term cash flows. They also borrow to fund modernization or future business expansion. It is common for companies to use mixed packages of different types of funding for different purposes – especially where large complex projects such as company management buyouts are concerned.
 * Governments often find their spending requirements exceed their tax revenues. To make up this difference, they need to borrow. Governments also borrow on behalf of nationalized industries, municipalities, local authorities and other public sector bodies. In the UK, the total borrowing requirement is often referred to as the Public sector net cash requirement (PSNCR).

Governments borrow by issuing bonds. In the UK, the government also borrows from individuals by offering bank accounts and Premium Bonds. Government debt seems to be permanent. Indeed, the debt seemingly expands rather than being paid off. One strategy used by governments to reduce the value of the debt is to influence inflation.

Municipalities and local authorities may borrow in their own name as well as receiving funding from national governments. In the UK, this would cover an authority like Hampshire County Council.

Public Corporations typically include nationalized industries. These may include the postal services, railway companies and utility companies.

Many borrowers have difficulty raising money locally. They need to borrow internationally with the aid of Foreign exchange markets.

Borrowers having similar needs can form into a group of borrowers. They can also take an organizational form like Mutual Funds. They can provide mortgage on weight basis. The main advantage is that this lowers the cost of their borrowings.

Derivative products
During the 1980s and 1990s, a major growth sector in financial markets was the trade in so called derivatives.

In the financial markets, stock prices, share prices, bond prices, currency rates, interest rates and dividends go up and down, creating risk. Derivative products are financial products that are used to control risk or paradoxically exploit risk. It is also called financial economics.

Derivative products or instruments help the issuers to gain an unusual profit from issuing the instruments. For using the help of these products a contract has to be made. Derivative contracts are mainly four types:
 * 1) Future
 * 2) Forward
 * 3) Option
 * 4) Swap

Over the past few decades, the derivatives market has increased and become essential to the financial industry. As the market expands, establishing and improving the regulatory framework becomes particularly critical. In response to the systemic risks exposed by the global economic crisis in 2008, essential regulations such as the Dodd-Frank Act (US) and the EU Market Fundamentals Regulation (MiFID II) were enacted.

 * The Dodd-Frank Act focuses on increasing transparency and regulating the derivatives market, particularly over-the-counter derivatives transactions, requiring clearing through central counterparties.
 * MiFID II enhances the market's efficiency, transparency, and fairness, improving transaction transparency and strengthening investor protection.

These regulations have significantly changed the market structure and strengthened supervision and risk management of the derivatives market. Although regulatory measures have enhanced market stability, they have also had a broad impact on market participants' operating models and strategies.

Seemingly, the most obvious buyers and sellers of currency are importers and exporters of goods. While this may have been true in the distant past, when international trade created the demand for currency markets, importers and exporters now represent only 1/32 of foreign exchange dealing, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

The picture of foreign currency transactions today shows:
 * Banks/Institutions
 * Speculators
 * Government spending (for example, military bases abroad)
 * Importers/Exporters
 * Tourists

Analysis of financial markets

 * See Statistical analysis of financial markets, statistical finance

Much effort has gone into the study of financial markets and how prices vary with time. Charles Dow, one of the founders of Dow Jones & Company and The Wall Street Journal, enunciated a set of ideas on the subject which are now called Dow theory. This is the basis of the so-called technical analysis method of attempting to predict future changes. One of the tenets of "technical analysis" is that market trends give an indication of the future, at least in the short term. The claims of the technical analysts are disputed by many academics, who claim that the evidence points rather to the random walk hypothesis, which states that the next change is not correlated to the last change. The role of human psychology in price variations also plays a significant factor. Large amounts of volatility often indicate the presence of strong emotional factors playing into the price. Fear can cause excessive drops in price and greed can create bubbles. In recent years the rise of algorithmic and high-frequency program trading has seen the adoption of momentum, ultra-short term moving average and other similar strategies which are based on technical as opposed to fundamental or theoretical concepts of market behaviour. For instance, according to a study published by the European Central Bank, high frequency trading has a substantial correlation with news announcements and other relevant public information that are able to create wide price movements (e.g., interest rates decisions, trade of balances etc.)

The scale of changes in price over some unit of time is called the volatility. It was discovered by Benoit Mandelbrot that changes in prices do not follow a normal distribution, but are rather modeled better by Lévy stable distributions. The scale of change, or volatility, depends on the length of the time unit to a power a bit more than 1/2. Large changes up or down are more likely than what one would calculate using a normal distribution with an estimated standard deviation.

Financial market slang

 * Poison pill, when a company issues more shares to prevent being bought out by another company, thereby increasing the number of outstanding shares to be bought by the hostile company making the bid to establish majority.
 * Bips, meaning "bps" or basis points. A basis point is a financial unit of measurement used to describe the magnitude of percent change in a variable. One basis point is the equivalent of one hundredth of a percent. For example, if a stock price were to rise 100bit/s, it means it would increase 1%.
 * Quant, a quantitative analyst with advanced training in mathematics and statistical methods.
 * Rocket scientist, a financial consultant at the zenith of mathematical and computer programming skill. They are able to invent derivatives of high complexity and construct sophisticated pricing models. They generally handle the most advanced computing techniques adopted by the financial markets since the early 1980s. Typically, they are physicists and engineers by training.
 * IPO, stands for initial public offering, which is the process a new private company goes through to "go public" or become a publicly traded company on some index.
 * White Knight, a friendly party in a takeover bid. Used to describe a party that buys the shares of one organization to help prevent against a hostile takeover of that organization by another party.
 * Round-tripping
 * Smurfing, a deliberate structuring of payments or transactions to conceal it from regulators or other parties, a type of money laundering that is often illegal.
 * Bid–ask spread, the difference between the highest bid and the lowest offer.
 * Pip, smallest price move that a given exchange rate makes based on market convention.
 * Pegging, when a country wants to obtain price stability, it can use pegging to fix their exchange rate relative to another currency.
 * Bearish, this phrase is used to refer to the fact that the market has a downward trend.
 * Bullish, this term is used to refer to the fact that the market has an upward trend.

Functions of financial markets

 * Intermediary functions: The intermediary functions of financial markets include the following:
 * Transfer of resources: Financial markets facilitate the transfer of real economic resources from lenders to ultimate borrowers.
 * Enhancing income: Financial markets allow lenders to earn interest or dividend on their surplus invisible funds, thus contributing to the enhancement of the individual and the national income.
 * Productive usage: Financial markets allow for the productive use of the funds borrowed. The enhancing the income and the gross national production.
 * Capital formation: Financial markets provide a channel through which new savings flow to aid capital formation of a country.
 * Price determination: Financial markets allow for the determination of price of the traded financial assets through the interaction of buyers and sellers. They provide a sign for the allocation of funds in the economy based on the demand and to the supply through the mechanism called price discovery process.
 * Sale mechanism: Financial markets provide a mechanism for selling of a financial asset by an investor so as to offer the benefit of marketability and liquidity of such assets.
 * Information: The activities of the participants in the financial market result in the generation and the consequent dissemination of information to the various segments of the market. So as to reduce the cost of transaction of financial assets.
 * Financial Functions
 * Providing the borrower with funds so as to enable them to carry out their investment plans.
 * Providing the lenders with earning assets so as to enable them to earn wealth by deploying the assets in production debentures.
 * Providing liquidity in the market so as to facilitate trading of funds.
 * Providing liquidity to commercial bank
 * Facilitating credit creation
 * Promoting savings
 * Promoting investment
 * Facilitating balanced economic growth
 * Improving trading floors

Based on market levels

 * Primary market: A primary market is a market for new issues or new financial claims. Therefore, it is also called new issue market. The primary market deals with those securities which are issued to the public for the first time.
 * Secondary market: A market for secondary sale of securities. In other words, securities which have already passed through the new issue market are traded in this market. Generally, such securities are quoted in the stock exchange and it provides a continuous and regular market for buying and selling of securities.

Simply put, primary market is the market where the newly started company issued shares to the public for the first time through IPO (initial public offering). Secondary market is the market where the second hand securities are sold (security Commodity Markets).

Based on security types

 * Money market: Money market is a market for dealing with the financial assets and securities which have a maturity period of up to one year. In other words, it is a market for purely short-term funds.
 * Capital market: A capital market is a market for financial assets that have a long or indefinite maturity. Generally, it deals with long-term securities that have a maturity period of above one year. The capital market may be further divided into (a) industrial securities market (b) Govt. securities market and (c) long-term loans market.
 * Equity markets: A market where ownership of securities are issued and subscribed is known as equity market. An example of a secondary equity market for shares is the New York (NYSE) stock exchange.
 * Debt market: The market where funds are borrowed and lent is known as debt market. Arrangements are made in such a way that the borrowers agree to pay the lender the original amount of the loan plus some specified amount of interest.
 * Derivative markets: A market where financial instruments are derived and traded based on an underlying asset such as commodities or stocks.
 * Financial service market: A market that comprises participants such as commercial banks that provide various financial services like ATM. Credit cards. Credit rating, stock broking etc. is known as financial service market. Individuals and firms use financial services markets, to purchase services that enhance the workings of debt and equity markets.
 * Depository markets: A depository market consists of depository institutions (such as banks) that accept deposits from individuals and firms and uses these funds to participate in the debt market, by giving loans or purchasing other debt instruments such as treasury bills.
 * Non-depository market: Non-depository market carry out various functions in financial markets ranging from financial intermediary to selling, insurance etc. The various constituencies in non-depositary markets are mutual funds, insurance companies, pension funds, brokerage firms etc.
 * Relation between Bonds and Commodity Prices: With the increase in commodity prices, the cost of goods for companies increases. This increase in commodity prices level causes a rise in inflation.
 * Relation between Commodities and Equities: Due to the production cost remaining same, and revenues rising (due to high commodity prices), the operating profit (revenue minus cost) increases, which in turn drives up equity prices.

title: Financial market


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Bond

Bond or bonds may refer to:

Common meanings

 * Bond (finance), a type of debt security
 * Bail bond, a commercial third-party guarantor of surety bonds in the United States
 * Fidelity bond, a type of insurance policy for employers
 * Chemical bond, the attraction of atoms, ions or molecules to form chemical compounds
 * Emotional bond, an emotional attachment between one or more individuals.

People

 * Bond (surname)
 * Bonds (surname)
 * Mr. Bond (musician), Austrian rapper

Arts and entertainment

 * James Bond, a series of works about the eponymous fictional character
 * James Bond (literary character), a British secret agent in a series of novels and films
 * Bond (string quartet), an Australian/British string quartet
 * Bond: Video Clip Collection, a video collection from the band
 * Bond (Canadian band), a Canadian rock band in the 1970s
 * The Bond (2007 book), an American autobiography written by The Three Doctors
 * The Bond, a 1918 film by Charlie Chaplin supporting Liberty bonds
 * Bond International Casino, a former music venue in New York City
 * Bonds (The Walking Dead), an episode of the television series The Walking Dead

Antarctica

 * Bond Glacier, at the head of Vincennes Bay
 * Bond Nunatak, Adelaide Island

Australia

 * Bond Island, Queensland, in the Torres Strait

Canada

 * Bond Inlet, a body of water in Hudson Strait
 * Bond Street (Toronto)

England

 * Bond Street, a major shopping street in the West End of London
 * Bond Street station, a major tube station in London
 * Bonds, Lancashire, an English village

United States

 * Bond, Colorado
 * Bond, Mississippi
 * Bond, Tennessee
 * Bond Street (Manhattan), New York City
 * Bond Court Building, the former name of a highrise in Cleveland, Ohio
 * Bond Falls, a waterfall in the Ontonagon River, Michigan
 * Bond House (disambiguation), various National Registered Historic Places in the United States
 * Bonds, Indiana

Outer space

 * Bond (crater), a crater on Mars

Brands and enterprises

 * BoND, architecture and design firm in New York
 * Bond (wine), a California cult wine producer
 * Bond Arms, a Texas gun manufacturer
 * Bond Aviation Group, a British helicopter operator
 * Bond Bridge, a Wi-Fi device that communicates with infra-red controlled devices
 * Bond Cars Ltd, a small-scale car manufacturer between 1949 and 1971
 * Bond Clothing Stores, a former New York clothing company
 * Bond Education Group, a Canadian operator of private schools
 * Bonds (clothing), Australian clothing company
 * Bonds of Norwich, a department store in Norwich, Norfolk, England, purchased by the John Lewis Partnership and renamed John Lewis Norwich

Education

 * Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia
 * Bond South Africa, South African campus of Bond University

Organizations

 * British Overseas NGOs for Development, operating as Bond, the membership body for UK-based NGOs working in international development
 * Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND), created by Jesse Lee Peterson

Other uses

 * Bond (sheep), an Australian breed of sheep
 * Bond paper, a high quality durable writing paper
 * Bond (Chinese constellation), both a mansion in the White Tiger constellation and an asterism within that mansion
 * Bond, the manner in which the bricks overlap in brickwork
 * The Bond of 1844, a treaty between Ghanaian tribes and the British establishing a protectorate over the Gold Coast.

title: Bond