BORSA
**I.** The place where securities or goods are traded or may be traded; hence two types of bourse: *b. dei valori* (stock exchange), where credit securities are bought and sold (government securities; shares and bonds of industrial, mining, commercial, etc., companies; currencies and foreign exchange); *b. merci* (commodity exchange), where the most important goods are traded (raw materials, wheat, rice, sugar, coffee, etc.).
II. Bourse operations may take the following forms:
a) Spot or forward contract with delivery: the two parties actually exchange securities or goods and the price either at the time of the transaction or at the agreed term;
b) Forward differential contract: the securities or goods are not delivered, and at mid-month or month-end only the difference in the price of the security or commodity during the period is paid—i.e., if at the time the contract is concluded the price of the security was 100, and at maturity it rises to 101, the party who speculated on the rise (bull) receives from the party who speculated on the fall (bear) the difference of 1 per security; the opposite would occur if the price at maturity fell to 99;
c) Option contract: the parties set a maximum limit on the upward or downward difference; payment will be made up to that limit if the price fluctuation of the security or commodity exceeds it;
d) Carry-over contract: one party (the *riportato*) transfers to the other (the *riportatore*) a specified quantity of securities with the express reservation of being able to repurchase them after a certain time—either the same securities or an equivalent quantity of the same kind;
e) Deposit contract: the reverse operation of that described in the preceding paragraph.
In every bourse, a list is displayed showing the quotations of securities or goods: the opening and closing prices; the highest and lowest prices. In the major bourses of a country, the entire economic life of the nation is reflected, and by extension, the economic pulse of other countries as well; hence they constitute centres of exchange, information, and guidance of paramount importance.
**III. MORALITY.** — Catholic moral doctrine is certain on this general principle: bourse operations, considered in their essential elements, are licit. For they result from the combination of originally licit contracts: e.g., the forward contract with differential settlement reduces to a wager or aleatory game, albeit under the guise of a sale; the carry-over combines, in reverse, a spot sale with a forward sale, and in the aggregate, bourse operations aimed at concentrating in the hands of one or a few operators nearly all the securities of a given type resolve into competition. Indeed, some authors, against the misgivings of others, proclaim not only the liceity but also the utility of bourse operations for the national economy: “it is in the public interest that there be some who, lured by the hope of gain, investigate these phenomena; thus prices are established with ease and security, and industry and commerce are better promoted” (A. Tanquerey, *Synopsis theologica moralis*, III, Rome 1929, p. 465). Therefore, bourse operations, licit in themselves, can become illicit and unjust only by virtue of particular circumstances that intrude among their essential elements, corrupting their moral goodness. The principal such circumstances are as follows.
The use of means that are in themselves unjust or illicit, in order to provoke prices favourable to one’s gain, with or without harm to others: e.g., spreading secret or false information about the prosperous or bankrupt state of a person or institution. Even trading in an excessive quantity of securities can give rise to various forms of illicit or unjust conduct. By provoking artificial prices beyond the maximum and minimum limits of the just and real price, private individuals may be harmed, which is contrary to commutative justice; or, without harming private individuals, the general economy of the nation may be disturbed, which is contrary to social justice: hence the moral obligation to observe existing civil laws in the matter (A. Vermeersch, *Theologiae moralis principia, responsa, consilia*, II, 3rd ed., Rome 1937, p. 474).
Moreover, excessive bourse trading, even without altering the just price, may be unjust toward the counterparty if it exposes the operator to the risk of insolvency by assuming risks beyond available capital; or it may expose a flourishing individual or family economic situation to the risk of considerable hardship: then, even without violating justice, an act of imprudence also constitutes a violation of moral duties toward one’s family or oneself.
Monopolistic operations in securities are licit or illicit according to the ends pursued. They are licit and useful if directed to licit and useful ends, such as defending a security threatened by crisis or by ill-intentioned or merely imprudent operators; they become illicit and unjust if directed to illicit and unjust ends, such as the ruin of a private person or institution, or the boycotting of their legitimate speculations.
Finally, it should be noted that, according to the decree of the Holy Office of 15 April 1885, ecclesiastics are obliged “to abstain from every contract that resembles the so-called gambling of the bourse.”
Both because of the consequences that follow and because of the conditions presupposed, a distinction must be drawn between violations that are merely moral and those that are also unjust. Injustice, in addition to moral wrongdoing, gives rise to the obligation to make restitution for the harm caused to others; this is not the case with merely moral violations. Yet for the obligation of restitution to arise, the circumstance rendering the operation unjust must meet three conditions: it must be truly unjust, i.e., injurious to another’s right; it must be effectively unjust, i.e., the cause rather than merely the occasion of that injury to a right; and it must be subjectively unjust, presupposing in the operator the awareness that such injury results from his action. If any one of these conditions is lacking, the obligation of restitution falls away, even though the gravity of the moral violation may remain.
In the bourse, brokers, like operators, may incur moral faults or injustices. As specialized intermediaries, their faults—apart from their greater gravity and ease of commission—are reducible to the common faults of all intermediaries.
BIBL. G. Bicchierai, *Il mondo degli affari e la morale*, Brescia 1935, pp. 197 ff.; E. Bonardi, *B. e valori pubblici*, Milano 1945; F. Massineo, *Manuale di diritto civ. e comm.*, 7th ed., Milano 1946.