Will Stocks Surge or Crash? Insights from History

One of the current best-selling books is about excessive risk-taking that preceded the meltdown on Wall Street in 1929 and the Great Depression that followed in the 1930s. The author warns that similar practices are putting economies at risk today. He notes that financiers are encouraging the public to invest in private equity, crypto, and other chancy products. They are hawking dangerous investments that resemble the kind that crashed in 1929.

Could a financial catastrophe be on the horizon, one that turns the recent market boom into a bust? Obviously, there are no easy answers. Yet an examination of history illuminates how irrational exuberance and financial deregulation sometimes triggers an economic crisis.