American history

The United States Stock Market

In the world today, people buy and sell to make a living. The American stock market is a great example of what it is like to buy and sell. The saying of the stock market is “buy low, sell high”. That means you buy a stock at a low price and sell it when it gets to a high price. There are two main stock exchanges. The American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. They are what most people basically trade on.

Basically the first major incident in the stock market was the Great Depression. The year of 1929 began a time period of horror in America. It was the beginning of the great depression. A time in which many lost their jobs became homeless, and went hungry. Many people had to live off the nutrition of weeds or some worked fifty - five hours and only earned seventy - five cents. The cause of the depression was the stock market crash of 1929 known to investors as Black Tuesday. Black Tuesday is said to be the most shocking financial event in the history of the United States. Not only did the stock market prices drop drastically but the business world was brought down with it. Inflation also rose because of the crash. The crash that occurred on October of 1929 caused Americans to lose Thirty billion dollars and the American dollar value was 90% less than it was prior to October of 1929. Wholesale and retail food prices dropped 40% and farm prices dropped over 60%. About four million families were left unemployed and on relief support only receiving fifteen dollars a month. Because of the crash the government was required to set new regulations regarding stock market trade. The reason for this was to attempt to prevent another stock market crash from happening in the future. The depression brought about many problems not only did people have to worry about unemployment they also had to worry about crime. Many Americans tried to get easy money by taking part in robberies kidnappings and murders. In 1935 criminals out numbered carpenters four to one, grocers six to one, and doctors twenty to one. In the mid west, crooks with shotguns and Tommy Gun were a common thing. In large cities the criminals were making money off of extortion, prostitution, and auto theft.

GREAT DEPRESSION TIMELINE