Did you know? You can go to any day’s “This Day in History” page by simply entering the month and date after www.begintoinvest.com/
For example: www.begintoinvest.com/May-9
Or follow Begin To Invest on Twitter or Facebook for daily posts!
Quote of the Day
“Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. … Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”
— John Maynard Keynes, in his 1919 book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace
November 7th – This Day in Stock Market History
1918 – At noon, a news flash comes across the wire:
“GERMANY GIVES UP. WAR ENDS.”
Euphoria erupts throughout the country and the New York Stock Exchanges closes at 2pm to celebrate. However, the news would prove false. German officials were traveling to meet with Allied commanders, but an armistice would not be signed until November 11th.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average would close up 1.14% on the news before the exchange closed. The post war rally would last a few months, but as government spending subsided and factories laid off jobs, the U.S. economy would struggle for several years. The U.S. economy would quickly enter a recession after the end of World War 1 and the stock market would decline more than 45% before bottoming in 1921.
Chart from Macrotrends
Best November 7th in Dow Jones Industrial Average History
1940 – Up 4.37%, 5.77 points
Worst November 7th in Dow Jones Industrial Average History
1930 – Down 3.51%, 6.34 points.
Read of the Day
Besides being one of the world’s most famous economists, John Maynard Keynes was also a very successful investor. We have a post about Keynes’ fascinating journey as an investor, which included multiple failures that nearly left him bankrupt. Learn from his lessons here:
