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Numbers are strange things in that there’s often more behind the raw data (like dividends) than first meets the eye. But it is worth noting that, according to Sorkin (interview), the initial drop of around 50% in “the market” in 1929 was largely recouped by year’s end when the market had pulled back to only a 17% loss for the year. Major publications in summarizing the year’s top stories didn’t even find that notable enough to highlight.
It was in the years following ‘29 that the real unraveling occurred. By about ‘39 or ‘40 the market had fallen by 90% from its 1929 high. A lesson might be that dips and relatively quick recoveries are what we’ve become accustomed to. A prologued near decade-long decline can’t be completely ruled out and something I doubt any of us are prepared for. It’s the time span that I find most intriguing. The ‘07-‘09 fiasco by comparison lasted only about 15 or 16 months by my memory.
Listened to an interesting chapter last evening devoted to Winston Churchill’s 3 month visit to North America in 1929. (Summary of that visit from a different source)
Bradley Tolppanen, Eastern Illinois University Document Type -Article Publication Date - April 2014
”Churchill took a three-month vacation to North America in the summer and fall of 1929, a little known event in his long career. In the company of his son Randolph, his brother Jack and his nephew Johnny, he toured Canada and the United States. Notable are Churchill's meetings with political, business, newspaper and entertainment figures (President Hoover, Prime Minister Mackenzie King, Bernard Baruch, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies and Charlie Chaplin) as well as his visits to such landmarks as the Grand Canyon, Lake Louise, Niagara Falls and Yosemite. The Churchills also visited a lumber camp, slaughterhouse and steel factory, went fishing on the Pacific Ocean and inspected the battlefields in Quebec and Virginia. They evaded Prohibition and gambled on the stock market (about to crash), It was on this trip that Churchill gained an understanding of the two countries firsthand and deepened his feelings for Canada and the United States.”
Comments
Numbers are strange things in that there’s often more behind the raw data (like dividends) than first meets the eye. But it is worth noting that, according to Sorkin (interview), the initial drop of around 50% in “the market” in 1929 was largely recouped by year’s end when the market had pulled back to only a 17% loss for the year. Major publications in summarizing the year’s top stories didn’t even find that notable enough to highlight.
It was in the years following ‘29 that the real unraveling occurred. By about ‘39 or ‘40 the market had fallen by 90% from its 1929 high. A lesson might be that dips and relatively quick recoveries are what we’ve become accustomed to. A prologued near decade-long decline can’t be completely ruled out and something I doubt any of us are prepared for. It’s the time span that I find most intriguing. The ‘07-‘09 fiasco by comparison lasted only about 15 or 16 months by my memory.
Have a nice day!
I placed 1929 on my to read list.
Bradley Tolppanen, Eastern Illinois University
Document Type -Article
Publication Date - April 2014
”Churchill took a three-month vacation to North America in the summer and fall of 1929, a little known event in his long career. In the company of his son Randolph, his brother Jack and his nephew Johnny, he toured Canada and the United States. Notable are Churchill's meetings with political, business, newspaper and entertainment figures (President Hoover, Prime Minister Mackenzie King, Bernard Baruch, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies and Charlie Chaplin) as well as his visits to such landmarks as the Grand Canyon, Lake Louise, Niagara Falls and Yosemite. The Churchills also visited a lumber camp, slaughterhouse and steel factory, went fishing on the Pacific Ocean and inspected the battlefields in Quebec and Virginia. They evaded Prohibition and gambled on the stock market (about to crash), It was on this trip that Churchill gained an understanding of the two countries firsthand and deepened his feelings for Canada and the United States.”