Customer Reviews

Apocalypse on Wall Street

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The answer is, a lot. There are many reasons the author gives for Black Monday, October 19, 1987, most of which are still issues today. Among these, currency deflation problems, oil supply problems, Congressional Acts, increased volume in stocks, increased volume in futures and options trading, and many many others. In fact, I found it easy to get lost in the detailed explanation of all the reasons for Black Monday.

What I found most fascinating was the discussion of the impact of mutual funds, program trading, index arbitrage and other hedging activities on the markets. If you want to know what it means when you hear "The curbs are in" on Wall Street, as well as why the curbs were put in place to begin with, this book explains it.

The author, Charles P. Kindleberger, saw the potential problems coming in Japan. He talks about this in some detail, as well as problems he saw in the U.S. economy at the time. Since this book came out almost 15 years ago, much of it is naturally dated. Kindleberger saw problems with the entire World economy and he was concerned about a World Depression. Ironically, he just may have been way ahead of his time on that call.