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Quote of the Day

“The rich man’s chauffeur drove with his ears laid back to catch the news of an impending move in Bethlehem Steel; he held 50 shares himself on a 20 point margin. The window cleaner at the broker’s office paused to watch the ticker, for he was thinking of converting his laboriously accumulated savings into a few shares of Simmons. An ex-actress in New York fitted up her Park Avenue apartment as an office and surrounded herself with charts, graphs, and financial reports, playing the market by telephone on an increasing scale and with increasing abandon. Thousands speculated – and won, too – without the slightest knowledge of the nature of the company upon whose fortunes they were relying, like the people who bought Seaboard air line under the impression that it was an aviation stock. (It was a railroad in the southeast.)… The big bull market had become a national mania.”

– Author Fredrick Lewis Allen’s account of the late 1920’s bull market. Source: Eyewitness to Wall Street

This day in history marks the peak of the 1929 stock market “mania”. After this day, it would take U.S. stock markets 25 years just to get back to this level.

September 3rd – This Day in Stock Market History

September 3rd, 1929 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches a peak of 381.17. This would be the Dow’s highest close before the Great Depression.

At the close, the Dow was up 24% on the year.

The Dow would not close above 381.17 again until November 23rd, 1954 – a span of 25 years!

Over the next 2 months, the stock market would experience 2 of its worst days in its history (“Black Monday”, October 28th, 1929, and “Black Tuesday”, October 29th, 1929) and the nation would be plunged into the great depression.

The Dow would finish 1929 down 17% from where it started in January.

Sources: The Market’s Measure and, It Was A Very Good Year

This same day was also the peak for Radio Corporation of America, a hot stock in the day. It would close the day at 101, and would fall to 2 and a half by 1932.

September 3rd, 1995 – Auctionweb,com is founded.

The website would offer free online auctions over the internet, and the website’s first item sold is a broken laser pointer for $14. 

AuctionWeb would be renamed eBay in 1997 .

Today, more than 800 million items are listed on eBay at any one time, and the company generates more than $9.5 billion in revenue each year. 

Best September 3rd in Dow Jones Industrial Average History

1999 – Up 2.17%, 235.24 points.

Worst September 3rd in Dow Jones Industrial Average History

1946 – Down 5.56%, 10.51 points.

<– Go to Previous Day – September 2nd, 1998: Long Term Capital Management sends a letter to investors saying that the fund has lost $2.5 billion or 52% of its value this year.

Go to Next Day: September 4th, 2018 – Amazon’s market cap reaches $1 trillion for the first time. –>