{"id":252,"date":"2008-11-04T17:10:53","date_gmt":"2008-11-04T17:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chriscurnow.com\/index.php\/2008\/11\/04\/what_actually_h\/"},"modified":"2008-11-04T17:10:53","modified_gmt":"2008-11-04T17:10:53","slug":"what_actually_h","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chriscurnow.com\/?p=252","title":{"rendered":"What actually happened in 1929?"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the recent volatility in the stock market, I thought I would look at a bit
\nof the history. I was particularly interested to find out what actually happened
\nin 1929. For those of you who might be interested, this is my summary of events. <\/p>\n

In 1929, the Dow Jones reached its peak of 381 on September 3. According to
\nseveral sources including this
\none,<\/a> it started the year, on January 2nd, at exactly 300. This coresponds
\nto an increase of 27% from the start of the year to September. The bubble is
\neven more pronounced though as the index hovered pretty much between 300 and
\n320 until the last week of June when it began its spectacular two month rise.
\nDuring the following month the market lost 17% of its value but after a brief
\nrecovery, the ‘Crash’ as it has become known, began on Black Thursday when
\na record 13 million shares were traded. The worst single day however was the
\nfollowing "Black Tuesday". According to this New
\nYork Times article of the time<\/a>, the market lost $14 billion on that one
\nday – a 13%
\ndrop<\/a>. The NYT reported a total volume of just over 9 million shares were
\ntraded on the day. However more up to date reports such as this
\none<\/a> and Gold
\nEagle<\/a> suggests a new record of 16 million were traded.<\/p>\n

The world did not see a single day fall as big as this until October 1987
\n(what is it about October?) when the Dow
\nJones Industrial Average slumped 22.6%.<\/a> However while the 1987 decline
\nwas short lived, recovering to its October peak of 2662 within two years, the
\n1929 crash continued for years. From its peak of 381, it fell to a low of 42
\nin 1932 – a fall of 89% – and did not recover its September 1929 high
\nuntil about 1957. I’m not an historian, and even less do I pretend to have
\na command of financial history but these numbers are sobering. Before I continue
\nwith the main discussion, here are some of the sources I used to gather this
\ninformation:<\/p>\n