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The Great Crash of 1929, some key dates

It has been 82 years since the Great Crash that ushered in the Great Depression. Here is a look back at some of the dates

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 By Adrian Mastracci

It has been  82 years since the Great Crash that ushered in the Great Depression.

Here is a look back at some of the dates.

 October  27, 1923: The greatest bull market of the 20th century begins after the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes the day near 86. It lasts nearly 6 years and lifts stocks by 345% until the Dow hits 381. Then, beginning in 1929, the Great Crash pulls stocks down by 89%, erasing all these gains.

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December  04, 1928: President Calvin Coolidge, in his State of the Union address, makes one of the worst market-timing calls in history: “The requirements of existence have passed beyond the standard of necessity into the region of luxury. Enlarging production is consumed by an increasing demand at home, and an expanding commerce abroad. The country can regard the present with satisfaction and anticipate the future with optimism….” Less than one year later, the Great Depression begins.October  24, 1929: This day is “Black Thursday”, the first taste of the Great Crash. At the opening bell, 150,000 shares of Cities Service, the oil company, trade hands for $8.4 million, the largest block trade of stock ever yet recorded. By 10:30 a.m., even the blue-chip stocks are dropping $5 to $10 with each trade, and the ticker tape is running 16 minutes late. By lunchtime, RCA is down 35%, and Montgomery Ward has nose-dived 39.9% (remember those names?). Then a bankers’ pool is formed to put a floor under the plunging market. At 1:30 Richard Whitney president of the New York Stock Exchange and lead broker for J.P. Morgan & Co. marches up to the trading post for U.S. Steel and bids $205 for 25,000 shares. That’s $10 higher than the last bid and the panic breaks. Still the Dow closes down 2.1% on record volume of nearly 13 million shares. The bull market of the 1920s is about to end and the Great Depression is waiting in the wings.

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October  28, 1929: Dow Jones 30 stocks on the New York Stock Exchange dropped from a September 3, 1929 high of 382 to 299 when the exchange opened on October 28, 1929. The  Dow Jones then plummets 38 points (13%) to close at 261 for the day. Before October 24, 1929, the record volume of stocks traded was 8,246,740, which occurred on March 26, 1929. From October 24 to 28, intensely heavy trading elevated the volume of almost every session to near or above the March 26 record.

 October  29, 1929: On “Black Tuesday” the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunges near 31 points to 230, an 11.7% collapse, but at one point during the day the Dow is down 48, or 18.5%. Today’s trading volume of 16.4 million shares shatters the old record (set just five days earlier) by nearly 4 million. In fact, 3 million shares are traded in the first half hour, more than an entire day’s typical volume just a few months earlier. This overwhelmed the Stock Exchange. The big gong had hardly sounded in the great hall of the Exchange before the storm broke in full force. Huge blocks of stock were flung upon the market for what they would bring. Not only were innumerable small traders being sold out but big ones too, protagonists of the new economic era who a few weeks before had counted themselves millionaires. The carnage does not just strike illiquid stocks like Transamerica Corp. which implodes from $62 to $20 but it also mows down such market leaders as AT&T which loses 12.1% General Motors (15.8%) IT&T (19.3%) Standard Oil of New Jersey (20.1%) and duPont (22.7%). The market has now lost 34% in just 13 trading days, 40% since September 3, 1929, and the Great Depression is settling in.

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October  30, 1929: The Dow Jones Industrial Average has one of its best days ever, rocketing up 29 points, or 12.3%, to 258 as John D. Rockefeller, Sr. announces: “There is nothing in the business situation to warrant the destruction of values that has taken place on the exchanges during the past week. My son and I have for some days been purchasing sound common stocks.” The Dow goes on to lose 84.1% more of its value before bottoming out on July 8, 1932.

November  01, 1929: For much of the abbreviated three-hour trading day, investors breathe a sigh of relief, as the market’s recent panic seems to lift. Up till the last hour, volume is light and stocks hold steady. Then a tidal wave of selling crashes onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, driving U.S. Steel down 6.5%. General Electric and New York Central Railroad hit new lows for the year, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average finishes with one of its worst days, losing 6.8%.

November  04, 1929: In an attempt to calm panicking investors, the New York Stock Exchange announces that it will be open for trading only three hours a day this week. The investing public takes no comfort, trading an astounding 6 million shares in just 180 minutes — more than twice the level of a normal full day’s trading just weeks earlier. U.S. Steel alone trades 108,700 shares, a nearly unprecedented volume for a single stock, and loses 5% to close at $184. The Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 5.8% to finish the day at 258 — down 32.4% in two months.

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 November  07, 1929: The stock market sludges through a day of murky panic, as 2.4 million shares trade in the first half-hour, one of the heaviest openings yet on record. By lunchtime, the market has slumped 6% in disorderly trading. Then J.P. Morgan & Co. steps in publicly and begins to buy stocks for its own account. By day’s end, the Dow manages to squeeze out a small gain, but the tickertape runs two hours late, and many sell orders go unfilled when they can’t be matched with buy orders.

 November  11, 1929: For much of the abbreviated three-hour trading day, investors breathe a sigh of relief, as the market’s recent panic seems to lift. Up till the last hour, volume is light and stocks hold steady. Then a tidal wave of selling crashes onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, driving U.S. Steel down 6.5%. General Electric and New York Central Railroad reach new lows for the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finishes with one of its worst days ever, losing 6.8%.

November  13, 1929: The stock market hits its low for the year as the Dow slumps to 199, off from its yearly high of 381 on September 3. The carnage in individual stocks is far worse: AT&T closes at $197, down from $304 on September 3; General Electric ends the day at $168, versus $396; Westinghouse closes at $103, a loss of $187 per share since September 3.

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 November  14, 1929: Stocks bounce off the absolute bottom of the Great Crash, as a wave of good news hits the market. General Motors announces a special dividend of 30 cents per share, Standard Oil of Kansas reinstates its dividend, and the New York Federal Reserve Bank announces that it is cutting interest rates from 5% to 4.5%. The Dow soars near 19 points, or 9.3%, one of its best days of all time.

November  17, 1929: President Calvin Coolidge declares that America is “entering upon a new era of prosperity.” Although Coolidge may not be the first to use the words “new era,” his remarks christen the bull market of the 1920s. In this “new era” market, declare many investors, you can’t pay too much for a good stock; if you just wait long enough, it will make you rich. That works for a while. Then it stops working — for more than a quarter of a century.

 December  10, 1929: For those who worry that the American economy is in trouble, Charles M. Schwab, chairman of Bethlehem Steel Corp., has a resounding answer: “Never before has American business been as firmly entrenched for prosperity as it is today,” Schwab says in a speech to the Illinois Manufacturers Association in Chicago. “….This great speculative era in Wall Street, in which stocks have crashed, means nothing in the welfare of business. The same factories have the same wheels turning. Values are unchanged. Wealth is beyond the quotations of Wall Street. Wealth is founded on the industries of the nation, and while they are sound, stocks may go up and stocks may go down, but the nation will prosper.” Well, sort of.

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December  31, 1929: The New York Stock Exchange hosts its annual New Year’s Eve party right on the trading floor, with the 369th Infantry Band blaring its bells and horns a full hour-and-a-half before the close of trading. Drunken brokers blowing whistles and whirling noisemakers stagger around the Exchange floor, and the racket can be heard all the way over on Broadway, two city blocks away. The brokers are celebrating two things: the prevailing belief that “it” (the market crash) is over, and the fact that high trading volume, even in a falling market, has made them rich. They will learn soon enough that their celebration is uncalled for.

March  16, 1930: Julius H. Barnes, who heads President Herbert Hoover’s National Business Survey Conference, proclaims that “the spring of 1930 marks the end of a period of grave concern…. American business is steadily coming back to a normal level of prosperity.” His judgment turns out to be premature — by nearly a decade.

 July  08, 1932: The Dow closes near 42, which turns out to be the lowest point of the Great Crash.

 March  15, 1933: The New York Stock Exchange reopens after closing for two weeks during Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s bank holiday, and pent-up investors bust loose in a bullish stampede, whooping and hollering as they propel the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its biggest one-day percentage gain yet on record, a 15.3% leap, to close at 62. The Standard & Poor’s Composite Index of 90 stocks soars 16.6%. Even so, stocks are trading at roughly 87% below their 1929 highs, share prices average just 0.65 times book value, and the average dividend yield (among those companies that can afford to pay one) is 8.7%. Stocks are trading at an estimated 10 times their earnings for the coming year.

 March  16, 1933: President Franklin D. Roosevelt takes the U.S. off the gold standard, removing the yellow metal from coinage and circulation, even banning it as a collectible.

 November  23, 1954: The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at a record high of 383, finally surpassing its previous high — set a quarter-century earlier on September 3, 1929.

Adrian Mastracci is a financial planner and portfolio manager at KCM Wealth Management Inc. in  Vancouver

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