266 The Stock Market Crash—dnd After 
Other Factors Apart from Justifying Causes 
It is also possible that had there not been certain 
other factors quite unassociated from the funda- 
mental justifying causes of the long bull market, that 
operated with the momentum of long and short-term 
swings in the October-November crash, the crash 
might have been prevented. 
There was the downward turn in the business 
trend resulting in a rather rapid decline in the aver- 
age of wholesale prices during the summer of 1929; 
but this was not so great as the 19277 down-turn had 
been, and it could not alone account for the panic. 
There was the tax on capital gains, discouraging the 
active selling of stocks to take profits and encour- 
aging the buying of new securities by the help of 
loans instead of by the proceeds of sales of stocks. 
There was the sudden increase of a billion dollars’ 
worth of new securities by the investment trusts, 
with a lag in their reinvestment of the proceeds in 
the stock market. Finally, there was the “boom” 
enthusiasm which during the three months preceding 
the panic, to a considerable degree, ignored yields 
and earnings in its extravagant belief in the future 
growth of business. This enthusiasm doubtless had 
its hold upon intelligent speculators who had sub- 
stantial grounds for their optimism as well as upon 
the “lunatic fringe’ that always attends the per- 
formances of rising markets. 
It is not altogether unlikely that there were other 
facts and situations now unknown or hidden, which