Stock Market Crash Essay

817 Words2 Pages

Americans to this day still remember the Great Depression of 1929. It was a horrific time for all of America. Following the stock market crash on Wall Street, millions were laid off, almost half of the banks failed, and people committed suicide. Currently, the U.S. stock market is better than it has ever been, with no fear of another crash, stock prices continue to rise. However, a rapid increase in American stock prices will result in an unrecoverable stock market crash and utter chaos. The scary part of a stock market crash is that no one, not even the experts on Wall Street, can predict when it will happen. The signs leading up to a crash are almost impossible to see until it actually happens. When it does, the U.S. will experience the worst economic collapse …show more content…

Businesses will close, people will lose jobs, banks will shut down, and billions of dollars will be lost, and people will behave like animals due to no social order.
A rapid increase in stock prices is the origin of a stock market collapse. When stock prices swiftly rise, the U.S. dollar is overvalued. Investors are more confident as stock prices continue to rise and are more apt to do whatever to get more shares. This act of desperately buying more shares proved to be catastrophic in 1929 right before the Great Depression. According to Pettinger (2017), “In the years leading up to 1929, the stock market offered the potential for making huge gains in wealth. Prices were not being driven by economic fundamentals but the optimism/exuberance of investors” (para. 4). This proves that the stock prices were not exactly worth what was being advertised and suggests that when stock

Show More
Related

  • The Inevitable Causes Of The Great Depression

    863 Words  | 2 Pages

    During 1928, the stock market continued to roar, as average price rose and trading grew; however as speculative fever grew more intense, the market began to fall apart around 1929. After the stock market crash, a period began that lasted for a full decade, from 1929 to 1939, where the nation plunged into the severest and the most prolonged economic depression in history - the Great Depression. During this inevitable period, the economy plummeted and the unemployment rate skyrocketed due to poor economic diversification, uneven distribution of wealth and poor international debt structure.

    Read More

  • Jim Braddock and The Great Depression

    694 Words  | 2 Pages

    The stock market crash of 1929 is one of the main causes of the Great Depression. Before the stock market crash many people bought on margin, which caused the stock market to become very unbalanced, which led to the crash. Many people had invested heavily in the stock market during the 1920’s. All of these people who invested in the stock market lost all the money they had, since they relied on the stock market so much. The stock market crash also played a more physiological role in causing the Great depression. More businesses became aware of the difficulties, which caused businesses to not expand and start new projects. This caused job insecurity and uncertainty in incomes for employees. The crash was also used as a symbol of the changing times. The crash lead the American peop...

    Read More

  • How Did Speculation Contribute To The Great Depression

    957 Words  | 2 Pages

    The stock market expanded rapidly during the period of 1921-1929. At this time investors were optimistic about the stock market, so they traded stocks, which caused the stock prices to rise. The stock market boom led to asset prices rising at a fast pace. Which in turn outweighed the true value of the assets. Eventually, since the stock market did not reflect the true value of the stock, this led to a huge bubble followed by a crash. This crash is also known as the Great Depression that led to a severe economic crisis in the United States.

    Read More

  • The Stock Market In The 1920's

    944 Words  | 2 Pages

    Firstly, the stock market crash in the late 1920s was one of the main factors that contributed to the onset of the Great Depression. The common goal of many Canadians in the roaring twenties was to put behind the horrors and doubts of World War I, and focus on what was to come in the near future. However, on October 29, 1929, the Stock Market in New York City experienced one of its worst days of all time. The catastrophic impact that the stock market crash had was enough to shift the world in the direction of an economic downfall . The rapid expansion of the 1920 stock market caused the market to hit an all-time high. Prices of shares skyrocketed and surpassed their once realistic value . It was now possible for individuals who could not afford

    Read More

  • The Great Crash 1929 Book Review

    1608 Words  | 4 Pages

    It is often said that perception outweighs reality and that is often the view of the stock market. News that a certain stock may be on the rise can set off a buying spree, while a tip that one may be on decline might entice people to sell. The fact that no one really knows what is going to happen one way or the other is inconsequential. John Kenneth Galbraith uses the concept of speculation as a major theme in his book The Great Crash 1929. Galbraith’s portrayal of the market before the crash focuses largely on massive speculation of overvalued stocks which were inevitably going to topple and take the wealth of the shareholders down with it. After all, the prices could not continue to go up forever. Widespread speculation was no doubt a major player in the crash, but many other factors were in play as well. While the speculation argument has some merit, the reasons for the collapse and its lasting effects had many moving parts that cannot be explained so simply.

    Read More

  • Farmers During The Great Depression

    977 Words  | 2 Pages

    A time in America’s history was made dark by an economic downfall. The Great Depression made life almost unbearable for most people living in the 1930’s. The stock market crash started on Tuesday October 29, 1929, it is also known as “Black Tuesday”. The stock market crash is known as the worst economic collapse in the history of the modern industrial world (“The Great Depression”). The Great Depression was a deep economic crisis that began in 1929 and lasted until the nation’s entry

    Read More

  • Moral Panic Essay

    523 Words  | 2 Pages

    Moral Panic The American public is exposed to violent crimes and drug abuse every day in the media. Panic tends to occur when the violence associated with drugs slowly infiltrates neighborhoods, and exposes law-abiding citizens to criminal activities. This panic causes a demand for action to eliminate the violence and crimes being broadcasted in the media daily.

    Read More

  • Moral Panic Essay

    1560 Words  | 4 Pages

    Moral panics surrounding the health, wellbeing, and behavior of teenagers have flared up consistently over the past decade, from getting drunk off vodka tampons to getting ‘high’ off MP3s downloaded on the Internet, or i-dosing. The popularity of the Internet among youth has inflamed moral panics, in which parents shift the blame onto a media form due to their fears about a new technology or a cultural phenomenon that they cannot control, and which they perceive as negatively impacting society. In his article The Cultural Power of an Anti-Television Metaphor, Jason Mittell discusses how framing a perceived societal ill as similar to a drug makes people believe it is a public health threat. The scientifically baseless moral panic of i-dosing illustrates the fears of parents, community authority figures, and the media that the Internet

    Read More

  • The Great Depression

    944 Words  | 2 Pages

    Post the era of World War I, of all the countries it was only USA which was in win win situation. Both during and post war times, US economy has seen a boom in their income with massive trade between Europe and Germany. As a result, the 1920’s turned out to be a prosperous decade for Americans and this led to birth of mass investments in stock markets. With increased income after the war, a lot of investors purchased stocks on margins and with US Stock Exchange going manifold from 1921 to 1929, investors earned hefty returns during this time epriod which created a stock market bubble in USA. However, in order to stop increasing prices of Stock, the Federal Reserve raised the interest rate sof loanabel funds which depressed the interest sensitive spending in many industries and as a result a record fall in stocks of these companies were seen and ultimately the stock bubble was finally burst. The fall was so dramatic that stock prices were even below the margins which investors had deposited with their brokers. As a reuslt, not only investor but even the brokerage firms went insolvent. Withing 2 days of 15-16 th October, Dow Jones fell by 33% and the event was referred to Great Crash of 1929. Thus with investors going insolvent, a major shock was seen in American aggregate demand. Consumer Purchase of durable goods and business investment fell sharply after the stock market crash. As a result, businesses experienced stock piling of their inventories and real output fell rapidly in 1929 and throughout 1930 in United States.

    Read More

  • The Great Depression

    915 Words  | 2 Pages

    October 29th, 1929 marked the beginning of the Great Depression, a depression that forever changed the United States of America. The Stock Market collapse was unavoidable considering the lavish life style of the 1920’s. Some of the ominous signs leading up to the crash was that there was a high unemployment rate, automobile sales were down, and many farms were failing. Consumerism played a key role in the Stock Market Crash of 1929 because Americans speculated on the stocks hoping they would grow in their favor. They would invest in these stocks at a low rate which gave them a false sense of wealth causing them to invest in even more stocks at the same low rate. When they purchased these stocks at this low rate they never made enough money to pay it all back, therefore contributing to the crash of 1929. Also contributing to the crash was the over production of consumer goods. When companies began to mass produce goods they did not not need as many workers so they fired them. Even though there was an abundance of goods mass produced and at a cheap price because of that, so many people now had no jobs so the goods were not being purchased. Even though, from 1920 to 1929, consumerism and overproduction partially caused the Great Depression, the unequal distribution of wealth and income was the most significant catalyst.

    Read More

  • The Great Depression in "Cinderella Man"

    1586 Words  | 4 Pages

    The stock market crash of 1929 was the primary event that led to the collapse of stability in the nation and ultimately paved the road to the Great Depression. The crash was a wide range of causes that varied throughout the prosperous times of the 1920’s. There were consumers buying on margin, too much faith in businesses and government, and most felt there were large expansions in the stock market. Because of all these positive views that the people of the American society possessed, people hardly looked at the crises in front of them.... ...

    Read More

  • The Great Depression Research Paper

    2275 Words  | 5 Pages

    ] This catastrophic event is caused by the accumulation of a large scale of speculation by not only investors but also banks and institutions in the stock market. Though the unemployment rate was climbing during the 1920s and economy was not looking good, people on Wall Street were not affected by the depressing news. The optimism spread from Wall Street to small investors and they were investing with the money they don’t have, which is investing on margin as high as 90%. When the speculative bubble burst, people lost everything including houses and pensions. The main reason ...

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby Stock Market Crash Essay

    450 Words  | 1 Pages

    F. Scott Fitzgerald delineated the Roaring Twenties in The Great Gatsby as “the parties were bigger. The pace was faster, the shows were broader, the buildings were higher, the morals were looser, and the liquor was cheaper.” It was the era marked by social changes and splendous parties and self-made millionaires. However, unprecedented to Fitzgerald and many of his contemporaries was that said glamourous lifestyle was built on a precarious foundation. When the stock market crashed in 1929, it put a period to the beguiling era and opened Americans to a horrid epoch. Yet, in actuality, the Stock market crash is an inexorable consequence of a time so reckless such as the Roaring Twenties. Some identified causes of the eventual crash are margin buying, overproduction of goods, and banks investing in stocks with depositors’ funds.

    Read More

  • Possibility of Zombie Apocalypse

    1080 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...rers, and thieves will run rampant with no law enforcements to uphold the peace. Mass amounts of people will die, families will be separated, and peaceful ways of life will be long gone. Guard your loved ones, board up your windows and keep you gun under your pillow because you’re gonna need it.

    Read More

  • The Great Depression Essay

    1508 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Great Depression was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downfall in the history of the United States. No event has yet to rival The Great Depression to the present day, although we have had recessions in the past, and some economic panics, fears. Thankfully, the United States of America has had its share of experiences from the foundation of this country and throughout its growth, many economic crises have occurred. In the United States, the Great Depression began soon after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors ("The Great Depression."). In turn, from this single tragic event, numerous amounts of chain reactions occurred.

    Read More

More about Stock Market Crash Essay

Open Document