Why Stock Markets Crash

Why Stock Markets Crash PDF Author: Didier Sornette
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400885094
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
The scientific study of complex systems has transformed a wide range of disciplines in recent years, enabling researchers in both the natural and social sciences to model and predict phenomena as diverse as earthquakes, global warming, demographic patterns, financial crises, and the failure of materials. In this book, Didier Sornette boldly applies his varied experience in these areas to propose a simple, powerful, and general theory of how, why, and when stock markets crash. Most attempts to explain market failures seek to pinpoint triggering mechanisms that occur hours, days, or weeks before the collapse. Sornette proposes a radically different view: the underlying cause can be sought months and even years before the abrupt, catastrophic event in the build-up of cooperative speculation, which often translates into an accelerating rise of the market price, otherwise known as a "bubble." Anchoring his sophisticated, step-by-step analysis in leading-edge physical and statistical modeling techniques, he unearths remarkable insights and some predictions--among them, that the "end of the growth era" will occur around 2050. Sornette probes major historical precedents, from the decades-long "tulip mania" in the Netherlands that wilted suddenly in 1637 to the South Sea Bubble that ended with the first huge market crash in England in 1720, to the Great Crash of October 1929 and Black Monday in 1987, to cite just a few. He concludes that most explanations other than cooperative self-organization fail to account for the subtle bubbles by which the markets lay the groundwork for catastrophe. Any investor or investment professional who seeks a genuine understanding of looming financial disasters should read this book. Physicists, geologists, biologists, economists, and others will welcome Why Stock Markets Crash as a highly original "scientific tale," as Sornette aptly puts it, of the exciting and sometimes fearsome--but no longer quite so unfathomable--world of stock markets.

Why Stock Markets Crash

Why Stock Markets Crash PDF Author: Didier Sornette
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400885094
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 449

Get Book Here

Book Description
The scientific study of complex systems has transformed a wide range of disciplines in recent years, enabling researchers in both the natural and social sciences to model and predict phenomena as diverse as earthquakes, global warming, demographic patterns, financial crises, and the failure of materials. In this book, Didier Sornette boldly applies his varied experience in these areas to propose a simple, powerful, and general theory of how, why, and when stock markets crash. Most attempts to explain market failures seek to pinpoint triggering mechanisms that occur hours, days, or weeks before the collapse. Sornette proposes a radically different view: the underlying cause can be sought months and even years before the abrupt, catastrophic event in the build-up of cooperative speculation, which often translates into an accelerating rise of the market price, otherwise known as a "bubble." Anchoring his sophisticated, step-by-step analysis in leading-edge physical and statistical modeling techniques, he unearths remarkable insights and some predictions--among them, that the "end of the growth era" will occur around 2050. Sornette probes major historical precedents, from the decades-long "tulip mania" in the Netherlands that wilted suddenly in 1637 to the South Sea Bubble that ended with the first huge market crash in England in 1720, to the Great Crash of October 1929 and Black Monday in 1987, to cite just a few. He concludes that most explanations other than cooperative self-organization fail to account for the subtle bubbles by which the markets lay the groundwork for catastrophe. Any investor or investment professional who seeks a genuine understanding of looming financial disasters should read this book. Physicists, geologists, biologists, economists, and others will welcome Why Stock Markets Crash as a highly original "scientific tale," as Sornette aptly puts it, of the exciting and sometimes fearsome--but no longer quite so unfathomable--world of stock markets.

A History of the United States in Five Crashes

A History of the United States in Five Crashes PDF Author: Scott Nations
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062467298
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
In this absorbing, smart, and accessible blend of economic and cultural history, Scott Nations, a longtime trader, financial engineer, and CNBC contributor, takes us on a journey through the five significant stock market crashes in the past century to reveal how they defined the United States today The Panic of 1907: When the Knickerbocker Trust Company failed, after a brazen attempt to manipulate the stock market led to a disastrous run on the banks, the Dow lost nearly half its value in weeks. Only billionaire J.P. Morgan was able to save the stock market. Black Tuesday (1929): As the newly created Federal Reserve System repeatedly adjusted interest rates in all the wrong ways, investment trusts, the darlings of that decade, became the catalyst that caused the bubble to burst, and the Dow fell dramatically, leading swiftly to the Great Depression. Black Monday (1987): When "portfolio insurance," a new tool meant to protect investments, instead led to increased losses, and corporate raiders drove stock prices above their real values, the Dow dropped an astonishing 22.6 percent in one day. The Great Recession (2008): As homeowners began defaulting on mortgages, investment portfolios that contained them collapsed, bringing the nation's largest banks, much of the economy, and the stock market down with them. The Flash Crash (2010): When one investment manager, using a runaway computer algorithm that was dangerously unstable and poorly understood, reacted to the economic turmoil in Greece, the stock market took an unprecedentedly sudden plunge, with the Dow shedding 998.5 points (roughly a trillion dollars in valuation) in just minutes. The stories behind the great crashes are filled with drama, human foibles, and heroic rescues. Taken together they tell the larger story of a nation reaching enormous heights of financial power while experiencing precipitous dips that alter and reset a market where millions of Americans invest their savings, and on which they depend for their futures. Scott Nations vividly shows how each of these major crashes played a role in America's political and cultural fabric, each providing painful lessons that have strengthened us and helped us to build the nation we know today. A History of the United States in Five Crashes clearly and compellingly illustrates the connections between these major financial collapses and examines the solid, clear-cut lessons they offer for preventing the next one.

Anatomy of Global Stock Market Crashes

Anatomy of Global Stock Market Crashes PDF Author: Gagari Chakrabarti
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 8132204638
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 69

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Book Description
This work is an exploration of the global market dynamics, their intrinsic natures, common trends and dynamic interlinkages during the stock market crises over the last twelve years. The study isolates different phases of crisis and differentiates between any crisis that remains confined to the region and those that take up a global dimension. The latent structure of the global stock market, the inter-regional and intra-regional stock market dynamics around the crises are analyzed to get a complete picture of the structure of the global stock market. The study further probing into the inherent nature of the global stock market in generating crisis finds the global market to be chaotic thus making the system intrinsically unstable or at best to follow knife-edge stability. The findings have significant bearing at theoretical level and on policy decisions.

The Great Crash, 1929

The Great Crash, 1929 PDF Author: John Kenneth Galbraith
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Depressions
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
John Kenneth Galbraith's classic study of the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

The Great Crash 1929

The Great Crash 1929 PDF Author: John Kenneth Galbraith
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780547248165
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
The classic examination of the 1929 financial collapse, with an introduction by economist James K. Galbraith Of John Kenneth Galbraith's The Great Crash 1929, the Atlantic Monthly said: "Economic writings are seldom notable for their entertainment value, but this book is. Galbraith's prose has grace and wit, and he distills a good deal of sardonic fun from the whopping errors of the nation's oracles and the wondrous antics of the financial community." Originally published in 1955, Galbraith's book became an instant bestseller, and in the years since its release it has become the unparalleled point of reference for readers looking to understand American financial history."

Capital Ideas and Market Realities

Capital Ideas and Market Realities PDF Author: Bruce I. Jacobs
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9780631215554
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
Bruce Jacobs sifts through the history of modern finance, from the efficient market hypothesis to behavioral psychology and chaos theory, to determine the cause of recent market crashes. Includes a Foreword from Nobel Laureate Harry M. Markowitz. Showcases the expertise of an author who identified and predicted the causes of 1987, 1997 and 1998 crashes. Explains the risks of little-understood option replication. Offers chapter summaries, appendices and a glossary.

A Reference Guide to Latin American History

A Reference Guide to Latin American History PDF Author: James D. Henderson
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
ISBN: 1563247445
Category : Latin America
Languages : en
Pages : 626

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Book Description
A guide to Latin American history includes a chronology of key events from pre-Columbian history through the present, a thematic survey following each topic (economic change, cultural development, politics and government) across time, and 300 biographies of Latin Americans throughout history.

The Mind of Wall Street

The Mind of Wall Street PDF Author: Leon Levy
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 0786730153
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
As stock prices and investor confidence have collapsed in the wake of Enron, WorldCom, and the dot-com crash, people want to know how this happened and how to make sense of the uncertain times to come. Into the breach comes one of Wall Street's legendary investors, Leon Levy, to explain why the market so often confounds us, and why those who ought to understand it tend to get chewed up and spat out. Levy, who pioneered many of the innovations and investment instruments that we now take for granted, has prospered in every market for the past fifty years, particularly in today's bear market. In The Mind of Wall Street he recounts stories of his successes and failures to illustrate how investor psychology and willful self-deception so often play critical roles in the process. Like his peers George Soros and Warren Buffett, Levy takes a long and broad view of the rhythms of the markets and the economy. He also offers a provocative analysis of the spectacular Internet bubble, showing that the market has not yet completely recovered from its bout of "irrational exuberance." The Mind of Wall Street is essential reading for all of us, whether we are active traders or simply modest contributors to our 401(k) plans, as volatile and unnerving markets come to define so much of our net worth.

A Bubble that Broke the World

A Bubble that Broke the World PDF Author: Garet Garrett
Publisher: Ludwig von Mises Institute
ISBN: 1610164830
Category : Credit
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
"Most of the matter in this book has appeared in the Saturday Evening Post during the last twelve months."--Author's note. June 1, 1932.

Narrative Economics

Narrative Economics PDF Author: Robert J. Shiller
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691212074
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
From Nobel Prize–winning economist and New York Times bestselling author Robert Shiller, a groundbreaking account of how stories help drive economic events—and why financial panics can spread like epidemic viruses Stories people tell—about financial confidence or panic, housing booms, or Bitcoin—can go viral and powerfully affect economies, but such narratives have traditionally been ignored in economics and finance because they seem anecdotal and unscientific. In this groundbreaking book, Robert Shiller explains why we ignore these stories at our peril—and how we can begin to take them seriously. Using a rich array of examples and data, Shiller argues that studying popular stories that influence individual and collective economic behavior—what he calls "narrative economics"—may vastly improve our ability to predict, prepare for, and lessen the damage of financial crises and other major economic events. The result is nothing less than a new way to think about the economy, economic change, and economics. In a new preface, Shiller reflects on some of the challenges facing narrative economics, discusses the connection between disease epidemics and economic epidemics, and suggests why epidemiology may hold lessons for fighting economic contagions.