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https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-1929-stock-market-crash-caught-nearly-everyone-off-guard-are-we-headed-for-a-similar-fate-51634717700

Then and Now: Will Today’s Roaring ’20s Meet a Similar Fate?

By
Kenneth G. Pringle
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The Brooklyn Daily Eagle headline on “Black Thursday,” Oct. 24, 1929, proclaims, “Wall St. In Panic As Stocks Crash.”

FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The supreme authorities from Chase National Bank, Harvard University, and Barron’s were as dumbfounded as everybody else.

Chase’s chairman and Harvard’s treasurer were among the market experts enlisted by Barron’s to judge its 1927 write-in contest that asked, “How would you invest $100,000 for a business man?” From 16 finalists, whittled down by Barron’s staffers from hundreds mailed in by market pros and amateurs around the world, the judges awarded the $1,000 first prize to Hazel Freeman.

In...

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