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by wasfgwp 12 days ago
The stock market did great during WW2, though.

Of course this time its not dominated by industrial conglomerates which can retool their factories to manufacture military equipment.

1 comments

The DJIA was more or less flat during WW2. Not sure where you've read that it was "great". During the middle of the war it was down 35-40%.
It was certainly not flat. There was a lot of volatility.

> Not sure where you've read that it was

Well.. I looked at the charts. The bottom was few months after Pearl Harbor and pretty much straight up after that. It certainly did much better after US joined than while it was staying out..

I should have been clearer. From September 1939 - May 1945 (when Germany surrendered), the stock market barely changed:

   September 1939: DJIA was 152.54
   May 1945: DJIA was 168.30
A ~10% increase over almost 6 years is way below average and well below inflation for that time period.

> The bottom was few months after Pearl Harbor and pretty much straight up after that

I mean, you've now picked the bottom of the market as your starting point (and not the start of WW2), so by definition it goes up after that.