Causes and Impact of the 1929 Great Depression

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There were many reasons that caused the great depression of 1929. The foremost reason has to be the overvalued stocks, which led to the crashing of the stock market. The stock market crash of 1929 was then most significant market crash in U.S. history. though the crash lasted only four days, it led to a catastrophic sell-off. The Dow Average a loss of 90% of its value between its record high close of 381.2 on September 3, 1929, and its following bottom of 41.22 on July 8, 1932. That was the worst market in terms of percentage loss in modern U.S. history. It would be another 25 years before the Dow was able regain its September 3 high. The stock market crash began on, October 24, 1929 the so called Black Thursday. The stock market opened at …show more content…

After the crash reform acts were put into place to once more stabilize the market. The first step was the formation of the Securities and Exchange Commission or the SEC. The role of the SEC was to lay down the market regulations and enact discipline in case of any infringement of said rules. Secondly the Glass-Stegall Act was passed. The Glass-Stegall Act states that the investment and the commercial banks could no longer have any involvement. Thirdly was the introduced and the establishment of the Federal deposit Insurance Corporation or the FDIC. This ensures that each and every individual bank account is insured up to $100000. After the crash of 1929 there was a gradual but slow improvement in the market as mentioned before. But that was just temporary. No one could guess that the year 1932 would bring such a huge crash again. The crash of 1932 was so huge that the crash of 1929 seemed really petty in front of it. There was 50% depreciation even from the lowest point of 1929. The drop was so massive that it just dissolved every bit of profit that the stock market ever had. Analysts said that for the stock market to gain that peak, which it had in September 1929, it would take almost 30

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