Sunday, February 6, 2011

The Stock Market Crash of 1929 & 2008

The initial resemblance between the two instances is that they both occurred in October but a closer examination reveals that the two crashes differ greatly.

After WWI the US economy experienced a major expansion due to new technology and improved production processes. People were encouraged to invest in the stock market by investors who were telling people how much money could be made. The crash of 1929 happened over the course of five days beginning on October 24 (known as black thursday). At the time the systems for tracking the market prices were unable to keep up with the trading volume and is believed to have contributed to panic selling that day. The market decreased nearly 90% in one week. Studies later proved that there were no inflation in prices prior to or after the crash, panic selling was the the culprit and brought the market to the ground.

The Crash of 2008 began on October 1 and at the end of 8 trading days the market dropped 22.11%. On October 13 would rebound sharply only to immediately drop again days later. Leading up to the crash of 2008 the sub-prime mortgage industry thrived giving people with poor credit access to loans they weren't qualified for which eventually lead to the credit market collapse. Following this defaults on mortgages started to increase which lead to the failure of many investment banks. The government chose to intervene with several banks and organizations. The amount of forclosure's greatly increased in order for banks to try to increase value on their loans. Unemployment rates also rose drastically. The economy has still not recovered at the present time.

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