Both the panic and the boom are eminently psychological phenomena. This is not saying that fundamental conditions do not at times warrant sharp declines in prices and at other times equally sharp advances. But the panic, properly so-called, represents a decline greater than is warranted by conditions, usually because of an excited state of the public mind, accompanied by exhaustion of resources; while the term “boom” is used to mean an excessive and largely speculative advance.
There are some special features connected with the panic and the boom which are worthy of separate consideration.
It is really astonishing what a hold the fear of a possible panic has upon the minds of many investors. The memory of the events of 1907 has undoubtedly operated greatly to lessen the volume of speculative trade from that time to the present (April, 1912). Panics of equal severity have occurred only a few times in the entire history of the country, and the possibility of such an outbreak in any one month is smaller than the chance of loss on the average investment through the failure of the company. Yet the specter of such a panic rises in the minds of the inexperienced whenever they think of buying stocks.
“Yes,” the investor may say, “Reading seems to be in a very strong position, but look where it sold in 1907—at $70 a share!”
It is sometimes assumed that the low prices in a panic are due to a sudden spasm of fear, which comes quickly and passes away quickly. This is not the case. In a way, the operation of the element of fear begins when prices are near the top. Some cautious investors begin to fear that the boom is being overdone and that a disastrous decline must follow the excessive speculation for the rise. They sell under the influence of this feeling.
During the ensuing decline, which may run for years, more and more people begin to feel uneasy over business or financial conditions, and they liquidate their holdings. This caution or fearfulness gradually spreads, increasing and decreasing in waves, but growing a little greater at each successive swell. The panic is not a sudden development, but is the result of causes long accumulated.
The actual bottom prices of the panic are more likely to result from necessity than from fear. Those investors who could be frightened out of their holdings are likely to give up before the bottom is reached. The lowest prices are usually made by sales for those whose immediate resources are exhausted. Most of them are taken by surprise and could raise the money necessary to carry their stocks if they had a little time; but in the stock market, “time is the essence of the contract,” and is the very thing that they cannot have.
The great cause of loss in times of panic is the failure of the investor to keep enough of his capital in liquid form. He becomes “tied up” in various undertakings so that he cannot realize quickly. He may have abundant property, but no ready money. This condition, in turn, results from trying to do too much—greed, haste, excessive ambition, an oversupply of easy confidence as to the future.
It is noticeable in panic times that a period arrives when nearly every one thinks that stocks are low enough, yet prices continue downward to a still lower level. The result is that many investors, after thinking that they have “loaded up” near the bottom, find that it was a false bottom, and are finally forced to throw over their holdings on a further decline.
This is due to the fact mentioned above, that final low prices are the result of necessities, not of opinions. In 1907, for example, every one of good sense knew perfectly well that stocks were selling below their value—the trouble was that investors could not get hold of the money with which to buy.
The moral is that low prices, after a prolonged bear period, are not in themselves a sufficient reason for buying stocks. The key to the situation lies in the _accumulation of liquid capital_, which is most quickly evidenced by a rapid recovery of the excess of deposits over loans in the New York clearing house banks (excluding the trust companies, in which loans are more varied). This subject, however, takes us outside our present field.
It is to a great extent because the last part of the decline in a panic has been caused not by public opinion, or even by public fear, but by necessity, arising from absolute exhaustion of available funds, that the first part of the ensuing recovery takes place without any apparent reason.
Traders say, “The panic is over, but stocks cannot go up much under such bearish conditions as now exist.” Yet stocks can and do go up, because they are merely regaining the natural level from which they were depressed by “bankrupt sales,” as we would say in discussing dry goods.
Perhaps the word “fear” has been overworked in the discussion of stock market psychology. It is only the very few who actually sell their stocks under the direct influence of the emotion of fear. But a feeling of caution strong enough to induce sales, or even a fixed belief that prices must decline, constitutes in itself a sort of modification of fear, and has the same result so far as prices are concerned.
The effect of this fear or caution in a panic is not limited to the selling of stocks, but is even more important in preventing purchases. It takes far less uneasiness to cause the intending investor to delay purchases than to precipitate actual sales by holders. For this reason, a small quantity of stock pressed for sale in a panicky market may cause a decline out of all proportion to its importance. The offerings may be small, but nobody wants them.
It is this factor which accounts for the rapid recoveries which frequently follow panics. Waiting investors are afraid to step in front of a demoralized market, but once the turn appears, they fall over each other to buy.
The boom is in many ways the reverse of the panic. Just as fear keeps growing and spreading until the final crash, so confidence and enthusiasm keep reproducing each other on a wider and wider scale until the result is a sort of hilarity on the part of thousands of men, many of them comparatively young and inexperienced, who have “made big money” during the long advance in prices.
These imaginary millionaires appear in a small swarm during every prolonged bull market, only to fall with their wings singed as soon as prices decline. Such speculators are, to all practical intents and purposes, irresponsible. It is their very irresponsibility which has enabled them to make money so rapidly on advancing prices. The prudent man gets only moderate profits in a bull market—it is the man who trades on “shoe-string margins” who gets the biggest benefit out of the rise.
When such mushroom fortunes have accumulated, the market may fall temporarily into the hands of these daredevil spirits, so that almost any recklessness is possible for the time. It is this kind of buying which causes prices to go higher after they are already high enough—just as they go lower in a panic after they are plainly seen to be low enough.
When prices get above the natural level, a well-judged short interest begins to appear. These shorts are right, but right too soon. In a genuine bull market they are nearly always driven to cover by a further rise, which is, from any common sense standpoint, unreasonable. A riot of pyramided margins drives the sane and calculating short seller temporarily to shelter.
A psychological influence of a much wider scope also operates to help a bull market along to unreasonable heights. Such a market is usually accompanied by rising prices in all lines of business and these rising prices always create, in the minds of business men, the impression that their various enterprises are more profitable than is really the case.
One reason for this false impression is found in stocks of goods on hand. Take the wholesale grocer, for example, carrying a stock of goods which inventories $10,000 in January, 1909. On that date Bradstreet’s index of commodity prices stood at 8.26. In January, 1910, Bradstreet’s index was 9.23. If the prices of the various articles included in this stock of groceries increased in the same ratio as Bradstreet’s list, and if the grocer had on hand exactly the same things, he would inventory them at about $11,168 in January, 1910.
He made an additional profit of $1,168 during the year without any effort, and probably without any calculation, on his part. But this profit was only apparent, not real; for he could not buy any more with the $11,168 in January, 1910, than he could have bought with the $10,000 in January, 1909. He is deceived into supposing himself richer than he really is, and this false idea leads to a gradual growth of extravagance and speculation in every line of business and every walk of life.
The secondary results of this delusion of increased wealth because of rising prices, are even more important than the primary results. Our grocer, for example, decides to spend this $1,168 for an automobile. This helps the automobile business. Hundreds of similar orders induce the automobile company to enlarge its plant. This means extensive purchases of material and employment of labor. The increased demand resulting from a similar condition of things in all departments of industry produces, if other conditions are favorable, a still further rise in prices; hence at the end of another year the grocer perhaps has another imaginary profit, which he spends in enlarging his residence or buying new furniture, etc.
The stock market feels the reflection of all this increased business and higher prices. Yet the whole thing is psychological, and sooner or later our grocer must earn and save, by hard work, economical living and shrewd calculation, the amount he has paid for his automobile or furniture.
Again, rising stock prices and rising commodity prices react on each other. If the grocer, in addition to his imaginary profit of $1,168 sees a ten per cent. advance in the prices of various securities which he holds for investment, he is encouraged to still larger expenditures; and likewise if the capitalist notes a ten per cent. advance in the stock market, he perhaps employs additional servants and enlarges his household expenditures so that he buys more groceries. Thus the feeling of confidence and enthusiasm spreads wider and wider like ripples from a stone dropped into a pond. And all of these developments are faithfully reflected by the stock market barometer.
The result is that, in a year like 1902 or 1906, the high prices for stocks and the feverish activity of general trade are based, to an entirely unsuspected extent, on a sort of pyramid of mistaken impressions, most of which may be traced, directly or indirectly, to the fact that we measure everything in money and always think of this money-measure as fixed and unchangeable, while in reality our money fluctuates in value just like iron, potatoes, or “Fruit of the Loom.” We are accustomed to figuring the money-value of wheat, but we get a headache when we try to reckon the wheat-value of money.
When a fictitious situation like this begins to go to pieces, the stock market, fulfilling its function of barometer, declines first, while general business continues active. Then the “money sharks of Wall Street” get themselves roundly cursed by the public and there is a widespread desire to wipe them off the earth in summary fashion. The stock market never finds itself popular unless it is going up; yet its going down undoubtedly does far more to promote the country’s welfare in the long run, for it serves to temper the crash which must eventually come in general business circles and to forewarn us of trouble ahead so that we may prepare for it.
It is generally more difficult to distinguish the end of a stock market boom than to decide when a panic is definitely over. The principle of the thing is simple enough, however. It was an oversupply of liquid capital that started the market upward after the panic was over. Similarly it is exhaustion of liquid capital which brings the bull movement to an end. This exhaustion is shown by higher call money rates, loss of the excess of deposits over loans in New York clearinghouse banks, a steady rise in commercial paper rates, and a sagging market for high-grade bonds.