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The Great Depression and Dow  
JUST THE FACTS 

Tags: Dow Jones, The Great Depression, 1929, Stock Market Crash

Though the markets of 2008 appear to be distressed, comparing conditions of 1929 - 1932, "The Great Depression", to that of today are seemingly different. Though 2008 is nerve racking, one will quickly find that we are nowhere near the distress levels suffered back then; e.g., unemployment was over 25% in 1932 vs. 6% in October of 2008. Could we get there? Only time will tell...

	The Dow peaked at 381.17 on 9/3/1929
	Crashed on 10/28/29 falling from 301 to 230 or 23.6%
	One year after the peak (9/3/1930) the Dow closed at 237.54, down 37.3% from its peak (vs. the 39% drop we saw as of 10/10/2008 close from the 2007 peak)
	Continued to slide until 7/8/1932 where it bottomed at 41.22, down 89.2% of its value over 2.5 years
	The Dow did not cross above 381 again until 11/23/1954, over 25 years after its 1929 peak
	The industrial average hit precisely 300 on the last day of 1928. It had soared 48% that year, making 1928 one of the best in history. (The only better have been 1915 and 1933.)
	In the '20s, the industrial average set a record in each of six consecutive years from 1924 through 1929. That was the longest such string on record until the current bull market, and by some measures the 1920s bull market was the strongest ever.
	On Oct. 28, 1929, The Wall Street Journal's main headline announced that the ''Industrials'' were ''off 38.33.'' The next day, they fell another 30.57 points. (Those two plunges, of 12.82% and 11.73% respectively, remain the second-highest and third-highest of all time in percentage terms, behind the record 22.61% crash on Black Monday, Oct. 19, 1987.) In six days, the industrial average lost more than 96 points, nearly 30% of its value.
	Graph of the 1920 markets can be found at http://averages.dowjones.com/mdsidx/images/avgimages/graph1920-1929.gif
	Historical graph of the Dow Jones through July of 2008. http://stockcharts.com/charts/historical/djia1900.html

Lister: DVE
Source: CNBC, Dow Jones, Stock Charts

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