Try Fund Library Premium
For Free with a 30 day trial!
Looking for a decent thriller to read over the coming holiday season?
Take a few hours to read 1929, the new bestseller from award-winning journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin, and published by Allen Lane. If it doesn’t scare you silly, nothing will.
Subtitled Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History and How It Shattered a Nation, this non-fiction book reads almost like a novel as it traces the month-by-month events leading up to October 1929 Wall Street plunge.
Along the way, we are introduced to a huge cast of characters, each of whom played a role in the unfolding tragedy.
They include President Herbert Hoover, an engineer who didn’t know much about financial markets and, while he was concerned by increasing speculation on Wall Street, took no action to stop it.
We meet Charles E. Mitchell, chairman of National City Bank (now Citigroup), a strong proponent of enabling ordinary Americans to benefit from the stock market money machine by buying shares on margin.
We’re introduced to Jesse Livermore, the ultimate stock market trader who was known for making and losing fortunes and ultimately took his own life. We follow the diary and letters of Thomas W. Lamont, a partner at J.P. Morgan & Co., who was a key figure in the failed attempt by a bankers’ consortium to try to stabilize share prices.
In Congress, Sen. Carter Glass, an outspoken Democrat from Virgina who was a key figure in the creation of the Federal Reserve Board during the Woodrow Wilson administration, did everything in his power to stop stock speculation and manipulation. He consistently pressed for higher interest rates to choke off margin accounts but was beaten down by New York bankers, who banded together to negate the Fed’s efforts, claiming middle-class Americans should have the right to share in the market’s largess.
What’s especially scary about this book are the parallels with today’s world, most specifically the role of leverage in creating an untenable situation. There are some hard lessons to be learned from this, especially with the recent federal budget that projects a record-breaking deficit.
What should you do if we ever see a repeat of this situation? I suggest following the advice Thomas Lamont gave to his son mid-way through 1929. “Prices can go lower so be sure to keep plenty of cash,” he wrote. “In my spare moments I keep feeling cash is a good asset.”
Too bad more people didn’t take note.
Gordon Pape is one of Canada’s best-known personal finance commentators and investment experts. He is the publisher of The Internet Wealth Builder and The Income Investor newsletters, which are available through the Building Wealth website.
Follow Gordon Pape on X at X.com/GPUpdates and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GordonPapeMoney.
For more information and details on how to subscribe to Gordon’s newsletters, go to www.buildingwealth.ca/subscribe.
Notes and Disclaimer
Content © 2025 by Gordon Pape Enterprises. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. The foregoing is for general information purposes only and is the opinion of the writer. Securities mentioned carry risk of loss, and no guarantee of performance is made or implied. This information is not intended to provide specific personalized advice including, without limitation, investment, financial, legal, accounting, or tax advice. Always seek advice from your own financial advisor before making investment decisions.
Image: iStock.com/bedo
Try Fund Library Premium
For Free with a 30 day trial!
Fund Library
