32 The Stock Market Crash—And After 
December 9th, notes that Britons were extremely 
active in “distributing” stocks at the high level in 
New York during September, as seen by the move- 
ment in sterling exchange. It adds: 
“Between September 24th and October 24th, 
sterling swung virtually all the way from our gold- 
import point to our gold-export point—an astound- 
ing reversal for so brief a period. On September 
24th sterling was slightly under $4.85; on October 
24th, it was above $4.88. This skyrocketting of 
sterling occurred at a season when it is normally 
very weak. 
“No one knows what volume of British with- 
drawals from Wall Street would be required to send 
up sterling in this spectacular fashion. Probably no 
important branch of statistics is so weak as those 
pertaining to foreign-exchange volume. Maybe 
$300,000,000 would do it; maybe $800,000,000 
would be necessary.” 
There had been a coincident rapid decline of 
stock prices on the Berlin and Paris exchanges. In 
Berlin stocks had declined with little interruption 
since early in 1928. The liquidation on all three of 
the principal European exchanges no doubt con- 
tributed in important degree to the overthrow of the 
American stock market, and was largely responsible 
for the September liquidation in New York, with its 
tremendous growth of brokers’ loans, partly to take 
up the holdings relinquished by foreigners. Indeed, 
there were indications that foreign liquidation in 
Wall Street persisted into 1930,