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

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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.

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."

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.

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 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.

Safety-First Retirement Planning

Safety-First Retirement Planning PDF Author: Wade Donald Pfau
Publisher: Retirement Researcher Guid
ISBN: 9781945640063
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Two fundamentally different philosophies for retirement income planning, which I call probability-based and safety-first, diverge on the critical issue of where a retirement plan is best served: in the risk/reward trade-offs of a diversified and aggressive investment portfolio that relies primarily on the stock market, or in the contractual protections of insurance products that integrate the power of risk pooling and actuarial science alongside investments. The probability-based approach is generally better understood by the public. It advocates using an aggressive investment portfolio with a large allocation to stocks to meet retirement goals. My earlier book How Much Can I Spend in Retirement? A Guide to Investment-Based Retirement Strategies provides an extensive investigation of probability-based approaches. But this investments-only attitude is not the optimal way to build a retirement income plan. There are pitfalls in retirement that we are less familiar with during the accumulation years. The nature of risk changes. Longevity risk is the possibility of living longer than planned, which could mean not having resources to maintain the retiree's standard of living. And once retirement distributions begin, market downturns in the early years can disproportionately harm retirement sustainability. This is sequence-of-returns risk, and it acts to amplify the impacts of market volatility in retirement. Traditional wealth management is not equipped to handle these new risks in a fulfilling way. More assets are required to cover spending goals over a possibly costly retirement triggered by a long life and poor market returns. And yet, there is no assurance that assets will be sufficient. For retirees who are worried about outliving their wealth, probability-based strategies can become excessively conservative and stressful. This book focuses on the other option: safety-first retirement planning. Safety-first advocates support a more bifurcated approach to building retirement income plans that integrates insurance with investments, providing lifetime income protections to cover spending. With risk pooling through insurance, retirees effectively pay an insurance premium that will provide a benefit to support spending in otherwise costly retirements that could deplete an unprotected investment portfolio. Insurance companies can pool sequence and longevity risks across a large base of retirees, much like a traditional defined-benefit company pension plan or Social Security, allowing for retirement spending that is more closely aligned with averages. When bonds are replaced with insurance-based risk pooling assets, retirees can improve the odds of meeting their spending goals while also supporting more legacy at the end of life, especially in the event of a longer-than-average retirement. We walk through this thought process and logic in steps, investigating three basic ways to fund a retirement spending goal: with bonds, with a diversified investment portfolio, and with risk pooling through annuities and life insurance. We consider the potential role for different types of annuities including simple income annuities, variable annuities, and fixed index annuities. I explain how different annuities work and how readers can evaluate them. We also examine the potential for whole life insurance to contribute to a retirement income plan. When we properly consider the range of risks introduced after retirement, I conclude that the integrated strategies preferred by safety-first advocates support more efficient retirement outcomes. Safety-first retirement planning helps to meet financial goals with less worry. This book explains how to evaluate different insurance options and implement these solutions into an integrated retirement plan.

The Stock Market Boom and Crash of 1929 Was Not a Bubble

The Stock Market Boom and Crash of 1929 Was Not a Bubble PDF Author: Bernard C. Beaudreau
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527542033
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
In the aftermath of the stock market crash of 1929, Yale University Economics Professor Irving Fisher remained steadfast in his view that the boom in prices had been warranted, pointing to the myriad innovations of the 1920s, including the introduction of the electric unit drive and utility-supplied power. Dismissed by most, this view has since given way to Alan Greenspan’s view of irrational exuberance. This book presents a series of contemporary and period writings which rehabilitate the fundamentals view, showing why Irving Fisher was right. Whereas Fisher was unable to provide a convincing narrative for the crash, these writings point to the Hoover Administration’s tariff initiative, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill, as the key element which contributed to both the boom and the crash.