Archive for October, 2008

The Recent Market – Bull or Bear Part 2

Last month did something to improve the record. The same list of stocks rose approximately 60 points from late May to early September, placing the average price level at a new high record. The average price appreciation was one and one-quarter points, or $1.25 a share a day for each trading day in June, July [...]

The Recent Market – Bull or Bear Part 1

WHETHER HE HAD ever bought or sold a share of stock in his life, Mr. Average Man was aware that the stock market conducted on the New York Stock Exchange slumped rather badly last spring. If he owned stocks he needed no other evidence than that which came to him in computing the [...]

Credit and the Federal Reserve Part 3

A LITTLE LATER, Governor Young of the Federal Reserve in his speech in Cincinnati, reviewed the expansion in speculative credit in such a way as to make it obvious that he expected deflation. The stock market, however, was not alarmed because he said that he favored raising rediscount rates only as a last resort. He [...]

Credit and the Federal Reserve Part 2

HESITATING to use force, our banking authorities have fallen back on reason. They and their allies have been trying to argue credit out of the stock market, placing before professional and amateur traders reasons why they should sell securities held on margin. If the dangers inherent in the present speculative enthusiasm are as [...]

Credit and the Federal Reserve Part 1

THE well-known columnist of the New York “World,” F. P. A., recorded in his diary the other day that he found two eminent artists arguing heatedly about the policy of the Federal Reserve authorities. This would have been surprising a year or six months ago but the credit situation in this country—and it [...]

Federal Reserve Jawboning Part 2

THE COMBINATION of the Federal. Reserve scolding and the boosted British bank rate chilled the enthusiasm of Wall Street speculators, and stock prices dipped sharply. They may have gone considerably lower by the time these words appear in print. The alarm was due to the feeling that the raising of the rate in London made [...]

Federal Reserve Jawboning Part 1

WE’VE tried everything else. Let’s give them a good old-fashioned scolding.” This is about what the members of the Federal Reserve Board must have said to each other before issuing the famous statement of February 6, in which they minced no words in asserting that the amount of funds being used for speculation was a [...]