In the four-and-a-half decades that I have been working, I count the 1990s as the most exciting. I joined the stock exchange in the early 1970s after completing three years of accounting articles. My first years were spent helping clear the aftershocks of the 1969 market crash, but the reverberations caused by the US's unilateral decision to unpeg the dollar from gold in 1971 and the Arab nations' oil embargo that followed the Yom Kippur War in 1973 not only threatened political relationships but instigated a painful economic slump in oil-importing countries.Further turmoil in oil markets ensued later in the decade after the shah of Iran was ousted.The good news, though, was that the super-high inflation that resulted from the quadrupling of the oil price brought a new meaning to interest-rate risk. It was a concern that shifted investors to the appeal of equities, and 40 years later the trend continues.The student uprisings in Soweto in 1976 were seen globally as a sign that the despised apartheid government would soon buckle. Trade on the JSE slowed to a trickle, compelling brokers to slash costs and cut staff.The unrest in the country gathered momentum in the 1980s, bringing widespread economic hardship and spurring a brain drain.In August 1985, with the world expecting reforms that would eliminate discrimination, Prime Minister PW Botha refused to make any constitutional concessions. The result was sweeping sanctions that plunged the rand to depths from which it has never really recovered.The 1980s were not without bright spots. Slowing inflation and growing expansion in the US fired bullishness in world markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tripled in three years. But on Monday October 19 1987 US markets tumbled by more than 20%, sparking similar dives around the globe.The 1990s turned global business upside down, ushering in changes that we are still appreciating. The fall of communist-led governments opened sizeable markets for international manufacturers and consumers. At the same time China was introducing radical reforms to lift trade barriers and modernise its economy, moves that would send commodity prices soaring, benefiting resource-rich nations, particularly in the developing world.Industry could not have exploited these developments without two crucial technological developments that revolutionised the way we connected, communicated and transacted with each other - the cellphone and the internet.Understanding that these technical advancements would shape all facets of our lives, investors swooped into the stock market, ignoring traditional risk measures, and bid up the prices of companies enmeshed in the new-age know-how to unprecedented levels.There was a dotcom boom and a dotcom bust, but now Apple and Google - with Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook - have created an upsurge in the market.This time it might be different. The companies are flush with money, while the growth of the smartphone market, the extended reach of the internet and the fast pace of technological advancements should underpin their fortunes for at least another decade, which I'm backing to match the 1990s...