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https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-experts-are-predicting-a-stock-market-crash-what-does-1929-have-to-teach-us-269356>
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Review: 1929: The Inside Story of the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History
– Andrew Ross Sorkin (Allen Lane)
Winston Churchill has just arrived in New York City. It is October 6 1929.
Travelling with several members of his family, the British statesman checks
into the Plaza Hotel, synonymous with wealth and celebrity – and certainly not
cheap. But that’s no concern for Churchill: the cost of his stay – along with
his cigars and brandy – is being covered by his old friend, financier Bernard
Baruch.
After eight weeks of crisscrossing North America, after being wined and dined
by his affluent contacts and business acquaintances, it’s no wonder Churchill
became “swept up in stock market fever”, writes journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin
in his riveting new book,
1929: The Inside Story of the Greatest Crash in Wall
Street History.
The anecdote is an insight into conditions in the US in the weeks leading up to
the October 1929 Wall Street Crash. The first day of real panic, October 24 –
known as Black Thursday – came just a few weeks after Churchill’s visit. A
record 12.9 million shares were traded on the exchange that day, marking the
beginning of the Wall Street Crash. Over two trading days, US$30 billion of the
market’s US$80 billion value disappeared.
The release of this book seems timely: many are making parallels between 1929
and now. “The 1920s economy boomed while America recovered from a deadly
pandemic, the flu of 1918,” wrote William A. Birdthistle, a former director of
Investment Management at the US Securities and Exchange Commission, in the
New
York Times last month. “Automobile and telephone stocks were the high-flying
tech investments of their day; Tesla and Apple are two of ours.”
And consider the breathless hype surrounding artificial intelligence. Michael
Burry, made famous by
The Big Short for making money on the 2008 financial
crisis, “announced he was shorting Nvidia and Palantir stock – and warned of an
AI bubble – before abruptly winding down his investment company, Scion Asset
Management”, the
Guardian reported last week.
Jamie Dimon, chair and chief executive of giant Wall Street bank JPMorgan
Chase, has recently predicted a serious market correction in the next six
months to two years. In the meantime, those at the top continue to fill their
coffers and carry on as if nothing is amiss."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
