Preview

How Far Was Speculation Responsible for the Wall Street Crash?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
834 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
How Far Was Speculation Responsible for the Wall Street Crash?
How far was speculation responsible for the Wall Street Crash?

Speculation was one of the main factors for the Wall Street Crash. There were other reasons for the Wall Street Crash but everything is connected. The Wall Street simply over-heated; between 1924-29 the value of shares rose 5 times. The Wall Street Crash was a horrible consequence for the Americans. People that lived in America thought they were doing so well because of the roaring twenties. People could afford almost everything they wanted, they could go out and spend money and buy many consumer goods. As the Wall Street Crash came people’s lives changed a lot and they couldn’t afford to do anything. Speculation was a trend in the late 1920's. Many people became speculators - there were 600,000 by 1929. Speculation was a form for gambling; it meant that many people were buying shares but they didn’t keep these shares for long. They borrowed more money so they could buy more shares and then sell them when the prices had gone up again. Some firms, which were not safe investments, floated shares, but people still bought them. They expected to make a profit out of them. The American economy was doing very well and as it was doing so well there were more share buyers than sellers and the value of shares was rising.
There were other factors that helped cause the Wall Street Crash and these factors are all connected. There was poor distribution between rich and poor. The problem was that the rich people were making millions but the poor were making nothing. There was also mal distribution of wealth, which led to the Wall Street Crash. A major cause of the depression was the inequality of wealth in America. There were some extremely rich people, and huge numbers of extremely poor people – the top 5% owned a third of the wealth, while 40 per cent of the population were living in poverty. There was barely any middle class and that was a problem in America because it was not fair that some people were

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    The Great Depression had many causes that built up to make it as big as it was. During World War I the U.S. had loaned supplies and money to their European Allies; not having these supplies or money caused the countries to go into debt making the depression go worldwide. The U.S. had a weak economy. There was an inability of the political and financial institutions to cope with the downward spiral that had started in the late twenties. Even after political intervention fifteen percent of the work force were unemployed. The biggest cause of the Great Depression was the 1929 Stock Market Crash. On October 29, 1929 stock market prices dropped dramatically and continued to drop for the next three years. “Stock prices in the United States continued to fall, until by late 1932 they had dropped to 20% of there value in 1929”(Britanica 1).…

    • 2193 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Dbq Great Depression

    • 894 Words
    • 4 Pages

    America had experienced difficult circumstances before: a bank frenzy and discouragement in the mid 1820s, and other financial tough circumstances in the late 1830s, the mid-1870s, and the early and mid-1890s. In any case, never did it endure a monetary disease so profound thus long as the Great Depression of the 1930s. Market analysts have contended as far back as to exactly what brought about it. In any case, it's sheltered to state that a cluster of entwined components contributed. Among them were:…

    • 894 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Great Depression Dbq

    • 1188 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The stock market crash was the beginning of the Great Depression but it was not solely the main cause of it. There was many different causes of the Great Depression like diversification and how the there was too few industries that could not handle the demands of the economy. Another big part of the Depression was the weaker consumer and how the businesses seemed to be taking more of the profits and giving the employees less to live on. The last cause is the increase in debt, people could not…

    • 1188 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the 1920’s the stock market appeared to “roar”. People with little knowledge or understanding of how the stock market worked invested heavily, as stock prices were rising rapidly with the with the demand created by all these investors. People believed this trend would always continue, and stocks were viewed as a quick and easy way to make money. Many put themselves into debt, or…

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The 1920s, also known as “The Roaring Twenties”, had been an unexampled success in America’s stock market. Investors tried to benefit from this upturn. They started digging in their own savings and buying stocks on margins. Stock brokers were charging high rates for investors who desired to purchase stocks on margins but this did not matter for them because the market was rising sharply in a fast pace. From the beginning to the end of this decade, stocks more than quadrupled in value. Stock prices started to unexpectedly…

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    1930's Essay

    • 487 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The United states was in a Great Depression in the 1930’s which caused chaos in the United States. One of the main causes of the United States going into the Great Depression would be the crash of the stock market, although it happened in 1929 it would send the U.S. into the Great Depression throughout the 1930’s. What happened was the everyday american saw how these people were making money by buying stocks, so they figured that they could do it to. But what happened was when all these people bought these stocks the stock market crashed and everyone lost their money. because of the stock market crash this lead to the banks closing. The banks deposits were not insured which meant that people would stop using banks, which meant that the economy went into the Depression.…

    • 487 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Speculation was a form of gambling on the stock market, speculators bought only 10% of the original value of stocks and bought the rest with borrowed money from banks. These speculators did not hold on to their shares for very long and would sell a soon as their stock value increased. These speculators kept borrowing more money so they could buy more shares and sell them when prices had gone up again. There were many firms, which were not safe investments, which floated shares, but people still bought them anyways, they expected for prices to naturally rise. There were 600,000 speculators in 1929. The American economy was doing very well. It was doing so well that they were more share buyers than sellers and the value of shares was rising.…

    • 304 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The stock market crashing (bucket 1) lead to an industry collapse. One of the main reasons of the stock market crash was most likely because too many people may have been investing in one particular stock. This was a major cause of how people lost the money they invested in stocks, which played a major role in people being low on money during The Great Depression.…

    • 379 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Firstly, speculation means that people invest in a business and buy shares in a hope that the business will make a profit and therefore make a profit on their shares. In America, in the roaring twenties, people saw speculation as a ‘get rich quick scheme.’…

    • 235 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the first causes of the Great Depression was the stock market crash. It began on October 24, 1929, also known as Black Tuesday , and was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States. The stock market crash lead to the deflation of the United States money and the decline in the economy. Many Americans used the stock market as a way to make easy money. Investing in companies thinking they could over turn a quick profit with little work. Little did they know what would happen of a day…

    • 420 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A lot of people started to invest in stocks, during the 1920s, when everything was going great (DocJ)! Everyone was making profit, sharing profits, basically gambling with their stocks (DocF). However, stocks can go up simply because buyers believed they will be able to sell the stock for more next week or next month. Most of the time investors were eager to invest in the stock so some of them bought there’s on credit. That is the investor pays a certain percent and the broker gets the rest of the money from the bank (DocG). But at the end everyone lost. Why because of speculation, the stock market crashed. The stock market was trigged by British who raised their interest rates in an effort to bring back capital lured abroad by American investments (DocD). Foreign investors and wary domestic-speculators began to dump their “insecurities” and orgy of selling followed. People began to panic and sell. Two months after the crash-stock holders had lost 40 million paper values or more than the total cost of war to the U.S. That was a major cause of the Great depression because a lot of people lost money because of the crash.…

    • 1150 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Prior to the economic downfall of 1929, money kept pouring in from different people throughout the whole united states. People started investing money into the bank and borrowing it as well. It is said that more than one hundred thousand Americans held stocks during the summer of 1929. Although many people disagree, the stock market crash of 1929 was not the sole cause of The Great Depression, but it did accelerate the global economic collapse. Another cause was because most Americans started putting their purchases on credit, which is when someone does not have the money at the time, so they save it for when they had money and paid for it, even though it seldom happened that they actually paid.…

    • 686 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The great depression was caused when the stock market crashed. The beginning of the Great Depression was on Oct. 29, 1929 that day is now known as Black Tuesday. Sellers were panicking because there was no buyers. Share prices deflated and margin loans came due. Another reason for the Great Depression was because of terrible banking systems there were banks that ran independent and unregulated. When the stock market crashed many banks failed to stay open about 11,000 banks were closed.…

    • 605 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Many factors led up to the Great Depression. Among these are: buying on margin, buying on credit, supply and demand, the stock market crash, and drought. With the popularity of the stock market in the 1920s, people would buy stocks on margin, which meant that…

    • 1991 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The stock market crash was the main cause of the Great Depression. Thousands of banks failed causing the economic process to slowdown. People were getting bank loans to invest in stocks known as buying on margin .The as the stock prices got higher people would buy more loans. United States had been through before they had never had a depression like this one. The stock market crashed in October 27th of 1929, Herbert Hoover was only in…

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays