History is enlightening

[ALS]

I ran across this on a Financial site so it is for insight.
Sometimes it is something you don't want to repeat.
This is just a little too close to 1929.


As I've noted before, the timeline for the past year has been different from 1929, as you can see from my Dow Jones historical page. The timeline in 1929was as follows:

3-Sep-1929: Market peaks
3-Sep to 23-Oct: Market falls 20% in six weeks.
24-Oct to 6-Nov: Generational crash - market falls 25% in 10 days.
6-Nov-1929 to 9-Sep-1930: Market is flat over the period of one year.
9-Sep-1930 to 8-Jul-1932: Market keeps falling, to 10% of its peak value.

The timeline so far today is as follows:


17-Aug-2007: Credit crisis begins, causing Fed to make extraordinary interest rate reduction.
17-Aug to 9-Oct: Market rises, reaching peak of 14164.
10-Oct-2007 to 12-Sep-2008: Market falls 20% from its peak in 11 months, in a period of collapses of many financial institutions.
15-Sep to 10-Oct: Market falls 25% in three weeks, amid multiple market crashes around the world, and significant worsening of the credit crisis.

[gf45acp]

Yep, we are screwed. I got my retirment account statement yesterday, lost over 10 percent of it's value.

[PA Rifleman]

This isn't the same as 1929. First, the margins in the 1929 era were as little as 10%. People were taking out huge loans to get in the stock market with the hopes of reaping fast cash, and a lot of it. In the end, it turned into a giant Ponzi scheme. Since then, margins are much wider and there's a lot more oversight by the SEC.

Second, despite all the Wall Street woes, have you noticed that our currency is not only stable but gas prices are actually *falling*?

Money's still good, but I feel for anyone retiring on their investments right now.

[Scrumpyjack]

"Man learns from history that man learns nothing from history" ~ Hegel's Paradox