Cinquantamila.it La storia raccontata da Giorgio Dell'Arti

(il giorno è quello degli eventi, il giornale quello del giorno dopo) • Il 3 settembre 1929 Wall Street raggiunse quotazioni record che avrebbe ritoccato solo nel 1954. Il crollo cominciò Sabato 19 ottobre: Stocks Driven Down as Wave of Selling Engulfs the Market; Losses of 5 to 20 points in Heavy Trading Put Level at Lowest in Present Trend; «Reactionary forces took control of the stock market yesterday and with a devastating sweep reduced the value of listed securities to the lowest levels reached on the current decline. In the two hours to which trading was limited on the New York Stock Exchange active issues passed through one of the widest breaks in history. Final quotations revealed net losses ranging from 5 to 20 points and the aggregate depreciation in open market values was estimated at $1,000,000,000 or more. The total turnover was 3,488,100 shares, which represented the second heaviest volume for a Saturday since the Stock Exchange was established. During the first half-hour trading was at a rate of more than 8,500,000 shares for a full five-hour day. The stock market community did not know until an hour and twenty-three minutes after the 12 o’clock closing gong what the final prices were, so late was the overburdened ticker. Stocks of all groups were driven down under the avalanche of selling, but it was the high-priced issues— the pivotal stocks—that caught the full impact of the movement. The “bear party”, concededly the largest and most impressive that Wall Street has known in recent years, rode rough-shod over the frightened bull faction. Big and little speculators, still clinging to their long commitments, were bowled over by the hundreds, adding to the already large list of casualties in the earlier declines. One of the stories which gained wide circulation wherever stock market tickers clicked yesterday was that Jesse L. Livermore, formerly one of the country’s biggest speculators, is the leader of the bear clique that has been hammering away at the market for weeks, and that the particular weakness which developed in high-priced and pivotal stocks was to be attributed, in part at least, to his activities. Arthur W. Cutten of Chicago, the recognized leader of the bull party, watched the ticker from his hotel in Atlantic City yesterday and told close friends that nothing had developed to change, his opinion about the market—that good stocks would eventually sell higher. Reports of a struggle between Livermore and Cutten for market supremacy, which have circulated widely in Wall Street for the last three or four days, were discredited although Livermore is presumed to be heavily short of leading stocks and Cutten heavily long of the same group of issues. The ascendency of Livermore to the position he once held as the country’s leading market operator on the bear side, after several years of eclipse, is one of the most interesting developments in the market. For those speculators who were short of stocks yesterday was a field day. Profits came to them faster than at any time since the market began to lose ground. So general was the weakness that traders were able to sell almost any stock, those of high as well as of inferior quality, and make several points within an hour. Speculators with limited experience who were fortunate enough to be sold out of stocks had the experience of taking profits on the short side as rapidly as they ever were able to in the market’s most spectacular advances. [...]» • Lunedì 21 ottobre: Stocks slump again, but rally at close on strong support; Continuation of Selling wave Depresses Most of List in Day of Exciting Trading; Some issues show gains; Market Broadest in its History with 920 Stocks Dealt in; Day’s Sales 6,091,870; Washington Holds That Situation is sounds; Exchanges in Other Cities See Heavy Losses; «Amid scenes of wild confusion and drastically lower prices, the stock market continued yesterday to pay the piper for its long dance of advancing and inflated prices [...] Losses on the day ranged from 2 to more than 10 points [...] Bank stocks and many prominent over-the-counter issues were weak and considerably lower. On the other hand, in some important section of the market there were gains of 1 to 11 points. Trading was so confused, the market was so big and broad, and the tape so late, that most traders in stock had no idea where they stood at any particular time [...] Five major factors are considered mainly responsible for the market’s wide break, which now has lasted through three days of trade and has out billions off open market values. These are: The readjustment of prices to a lower level more commensurate with earnings and immediate prospects. Unanswered margin calls by thousands of small traders whose stocks were sold at the market. The catching of a multitude of stop-loss orders also added to the confusion. Foreign liquidation on a large scale, especially in the railroadstocks, as foreigners had to protect their interests at home. Impressive hammering at the market by bearish traders, with especially skillful short selling by many wealthy individuals. The development of a wave of apprehension among stockholders, many of whom still had profits. [...]» • Martedì 22 ottobre: Stocks gain sharply but slip near close; Vigorous Recovery Marks Most of Day and Many Issues Shows Net Advances; Market Gloom Lessend; Banking Support, Ease of Money and Mitchell’s Optimistic Statement Help Rally; «Stocks made a vigorous recovery yesterday in the first half of a day of quiet trading. Just before the market closed, however, they started to slip downward and many of the bigger gains were quickly lost. Prices closed at about their opening levels, with gains ranging from a point to more than 15 throughout a long list of representative issues. Organized banking support for the frightened market, which made its appearance in the last fifteen minutes of trading on Monday, was evident at the market’s opening and overnight gains of 1 point to 16 ¼ were established. The continued ease of money, which declined from its opening of 6 per cent to 5, aided the market, and prices ran up quickly and vigorously during the morning and early afternoon. Then some nervousness became apparent, and in the last half hour of trading leading stocks came down rather quickly. [...]» • Mercoledì 23 ottobre: Prices of Stocks Crash in Heavy Liquidation, Total Drop of Billions; Paper Loss $4,000,000,000; 2,600,000 Shares Sold in the Final Hour in Record Decline; Many Accounts Wiped Out; But No Brokerage House is in Difficulties, ad Margins Have Been Kept High; Organized Backing Absent; «Frightened by the decline in stock prices during the last month and a half, thousands of stockholders dumped their shares on the market yesterday afternoon in such an avalanche of selling as to bring about one of the widest declines in history. Even the best of seasoned dividend-paying shares were sold regardless of the prices they would bring, and the result was a tremendous smash in which stocks lost from a few points to as much as ninety-six. [...] The collapse of the market in the final hour of trading seemed the more violent because of its suddenness, the mystery which surrounded it, particularly as to the identity of the sellers, and the tremendous volume of the trading, which reached a total of 2,600,000 shares in the hour between 2 and 3 o’clock. Statistically the market made a sorry showing. The railroad shares, as measured by The New Tork Times average of twenty-five representative stocks, were down 5.52 and the industrial shares 30.97. The total combined average of fifty representative issues was down 18.24 marking the largest decline since the start of the compilation of these records in 1911 [...] The day had opened calmly enough. Many prices were higher. Trading was quiet in mid-morning, but featured by a sudden and unexplained wave of liquidation in the motor accessory issues. When this burst of selling had spent its force the market wavered and began to slip, slowly at first and then faster. By 1 o’clock the decline had reached large proportions, but it was not until the last hour that the full force of the storm was felt [...]» • Giovedì 24 ottobre (“giovedì nero”): Worst Stock Crash Stemmed by Banks; 12,894,650-Share Day Swamps Market; Leaders Confer, Find Conditions Sound; Wall Street Optimistic After Stormy Day; Clerical Work May Force Holiday Tomorrow; «Wall Street gave credit yesterday to its banking leaders for arresting the decline on the New York Stock Exchange at a time when the stock market was being overwhelmed by selling orders. The conference at which the steps were taken that reversed the market’s trend was hurriedly called at the offices of J. P. Morgan & Co. The five bankers who met at the headquarters of the famous private banking house at noon yesterday and again at 4:30 P. M., following the meeting of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, were: Charles E. Mitchell, chairman of the National City Bank; Albert H. Wiggins, chairman of the Chase National Bank; William Potter, president ot the Guaranty Trust Company; Seward Prosser, chairman of the Bankers Trust Company; Thomas W. Lamont, senior partner of the Morgan firm. Exclusive of the vast wealth of the house of Morgan this group of bankers represented more than $6,000,000,000 of massed banking resources. Meeting Eases Tenseness. As the word went out in Wall Street that these financiers had met the air of tense anxiety in the financial district was relieved. Almost at once the word was passed around the floor of the Stock Exchange that "they" were going to support stock prices and the down-rush of security quotations was halted. [...]»; «Confidence in the soundness of the stock-market structure, notwithstanding the upheaval of the last few days, was voiced last night by bankers and other financial leaders. Sentiment as expressed by the heads of some of the largest banking institutions and by industrial executives as well was distinctly cheerful and the feeling was general that the worst had been seen. Wall Street ended the day in an optimistic frame of mind. The opinion of brokers was unanimous that the selling had got out of hand not because of any inherent weakness in the market but because the public had become alarmed over the steady liquidation of the last few weeks. Over their private wires these brokers counseled their customers against further thoughtless selling at sacrifice prices. [...]» • Venerdì 25 ottobre: Stocks Gain as Market is Steadied; Bankers Pledge Continued Support; Hoover Says Business Basis is Sound; Trading is near normal; 5,923,220 Shares Are Sold, Fluctuations in Price Narrow; Strong Coalition to protect Values Restores Confidence and Halts Liquidation; Officials are optimistic; «Order came quickly out of chaos in Wall Street yesterday. Heartened by the assertions of the leading bankers and industrialists that the financial position of the country is fundamentally sound, the market opened steady and continued to fluctuate narrowly, but evenly, throughout a trading day not far from normal. Two developments stood out most prominently and at once caught and held the attention of the entire world, the eyes of which were focused yesterday morning on the New York Stock Exchange. One was the remarkable stability of the prices of leading securities after their tremendous upheaval of the previous day; the other was the decline in volume, which aggregated 5,923.220 shares on the Stock Exchange, compared with 12,880,300 shares on the previous day. [...] From bell to bell on the exchanges, the markets were orderly and temperate. For a day of such activity there was little confusion, and the fluctuations of most leading issues were within a narrow range that reflected just how capably a serious difficulty had been taken in hand and conquered. [...]» • Sabato 26 ottobre: Stocks Hold Firm in Normal Trading; Pool Still On Guard; Many Issues Advance, but Some Decline in Belated Selling to Straighten Out Accounts; «After one of the most disastrous weeks in its history, the stock market returned to normal yesterday. Trading quieted down to a measured, steady pace, and prices were firm, without evidence of artificial support. There were many losses as a result of the day’s trading on the Stock Exchange and the Curb, and many gains, but no more than in an ordinary day of trading. The day’s developments furnished additional proof that the market situation is firmly in hand, that the wave of financial hysteria has definitely passed and that stocks once again are selling on their earning merits, rather than at fictitious levels, both much higher and much lower, created by the haste of thousands of speculators to get in or get out of the market. Three features stood out most prominently in yesterday’s general Wall Street situation: First, the unqualified statements by the country’s leading men, including President Hoover and the most influential bankers, that the financial and commercial structure of the country is fundamentally sound. Second, the ability of the market quickly to stabilize itself after what many term the most -disastrous week in market history, barring the financial catastrophe which followed the outbreak of the war and the closing of the Exchanges. Third, the fact that all firms and individuals have been able to get through this harrowing period without a single one announcing inability to meet commitments. [...]» • Domenica 27 ottobre: Wall Street Hums on the Day of Rest, to Catch Up On Work; Congress Action Unlikely; «Wall Street, usually as deserted and quiet on Sunday as a country graveyard, hummed with activity yesterday as bankers and brokers strove to put their houses in order after the most strenuous week in history, in which all previous records for the exchange of securities on the New York Stock Exchange, the Curb Market and over the counter were broken. They did a good job of cleaning up the mass of detail, and when the bell clangs at 10 o’clock this morning for the resumption of trading, most houses will be abreast of their work and ready for what may come. Every Stock Exchange and Curb house, all of the registrars and transfer offices and other organizations that clear, classify or deal with securities had full staffs at work all day yesterday, and in the financial district, ordinarily populated solely by guards and passers-by on their way to the Battery or Staten Island, messenger boys hurried through the streets, cars were parked, sometimes two abreast, before each large building, and workers struggled with the mountain of clerical detail entailed in finally adjusting the biggest stock market week in history. [...]» • Lunedì 28 ottobre: Stock Prices Slump $14,000,000,000 in Nation-Wide Stampede to Unload; Bankers to Support Market Today; Unexpected Torrent of Liquidation Again Rocks Markets; Day’s Sales 9,212,800; Nearly 3,000,000 Shares Are Traded in Final Hour, The Tickers Lag 167 Minutes; New Rally Soon Broken; Selling by Europeans and “Mob Psychology” Big Factors in Second Big Break; «The second hurricane of liquidation within four days hit the stock market yesterday. It came suddenly, and violently, after holders of stocks had been lulled into a sense of security by the rallies of Friday and Saturday. It was a country-wide collapse of open-market security values in which the declines established and the actual loss taken in dollars and cents were probably the most disastrous and far-reaching in the history of the Stock Exchange. That the storm has now blown itself out, that there will be organized support to put an end to a reaction which has ripped billions of dollars from market values, appeared certain last night from statements by leading bankers. Although total estimates of the losses on securities are difficult to make, because of the large number of them non listed on any exchange, it was calculated last night that the total shrinkage in American securities on all exchanges yesterday had aggregated some $14,000,000,000, with a decline of about $10,000,000,000 in New York Stock Exchange securities. The figure is necessarily a rough one, but nevertheless gives an idea of the dollars and cents recessions in one of the most extraordinary declines in the history of American markets. It was not so much the little trader or speculator who was struck by yesterday’s cyclone; it was the rich men of the country, the institutions which have purchased common stocks, the investment trusts and investors of all kind. The little speculators were mostly blown out of their account by the long decline from early September. Thousands of them went headlong out of the market on Thursday. It was the big man, however, whose holdings were endangered yesterday and who threw his holdings into the Stock Exchange for just what they would bring, when hysteria finally seized him. Shares of the best known American industrial and railroad corporations smashed through their old lows of Thursday, and most of them to the lowest level for many years, as wave after wave of liquidation swept the market during a day of utter confusion and rout. As bid after bid was filled for stocks and more and more offered, stocks of the best grade dropped almost perpendicularly, with 2, 3, 4 and even 10 points between sales under probably the most demoralized conditions of trade in the history of the Stock Exchange and the Curb [...]» • Martedì 29 ottobre 1929 (“Martedì nero”): Stocks Collapse in 16,410,030-Share Day, but Rally at Close Cheers Brokers; Bankers Optismistic, to continue aid; Leaders See Fear Waning; Leading Issues Regain From 4 to 14 Points in 15 minutes; Investment Trusts Buy; Large Blocks Throw on Market at Opening Start Third Break of Week; Big Traders Hardest Hit; Bankers Believe Liquidation Now Has Run its Course and Advise Purchase; «Stocks prices virtually collapsed yesterday, swept downward with gigantic losses in the most disastrous trading day in the stock market’s history. Billions of dollars in open market’s values were wiped out ad prices crumbled under the pressure of liquidation of securities which had to be sold at any price. There was an impressive rally just at the close, which brought many leading stocks back from 4 to 14 points from their lowest point of the day. Trading on the New York Stock Exchange aggregated 16,410,030 shares; on the Curb 7.096,8000 shares were dealt in. Both totals far exceeded any previous day’s dealings. From every point of view, in the extent of losses sustained, in total turnover, in the number of speculators wiped out, the day was the most disastrous in Wall Street’s history. Hysteria swept the country and stocks went overboard for just what yhey would bring at forced sale. Efforts to estimate yesterday’s market losses in dollars are futile because of the vast number of securities quoted over the counter and on out-of-town exchanges on which no calculations are possibile. However, it was estimated that 880 issues on the New York Stock Exchange lost between $8,000,000,000 and $9,000,000,000 yesterday. Added to taht loss is to be reckoned the depreciation on issues on the Curb Market, in the over the counter market and on other exchanges. There were two cheerful notes, however, which sounds through the pall of gloom which overhung the financial centres of the country. One was the brisk rally of stocks at the close, on tremendous buying by those who believes that prices have sunk too low. The other was that the liquidation has been so violent, as well as widespread, that many bankers, brokers and industrial leaders express the belief last night that it now has run its course. [...] Banking support, which would have been impressive and successful under ordinary circumstances, was swept violently aside, as block after block of stocks, tremendous in proportions, deluge the market. Bid prices placed by bankers, industrial leaders and brokers trying to halt the decline were crashed through violently, their orders were filled, and quotations plunged downward in a day of disorganization, confusion and financial impotence [...]». • Vedi anche IL CROLLO DI WALL STREET DEL ’29 NELLE CRONACHE DELLA STAMPA

THE NEW YORK TIMES