The Hopeful Outlook 267 
may later be unearthed, which played important 
roles in bringing about the panic. 
All the untoward cases operated to produce a col- 
lapse from the high level of September 7th to the 
low average of November 13th—a 42 per cent de- 
cline in my daily index of daily market prices. Over- 
enthusiasm may have raised the September market 
to a point fifteen to twenty per cent higher than was 
warranted by the substantial justifying causes of the 
bull market. 
Plateau of 1926-1929 Remains 
But because of these substantial reasons the gen- 
eral plateau of the stock market is still the plateau 
of 1926-1929, still 55 per cent higher than it was 
in 1926, and still vastly higher than any previous 
plateau. During the period between 1913 and 1926 
the new plateau had risen, according to the Dow- 
Jones average, by 88 per cent, as contrasted with a 
40 per cent rise in commodity prices. That repre- 
sented the absorption of advantages from a higher 
general price level into the equities of common 
shares. Since 1926 there has been a continued and 
increasing absorption into these equities of advan- 
tages resulting from increased earnings and the 
plowing-back of earnings into business at increasing 
rates. In addition, these equities have absorbed 
still greater advantages from the revolution in the 
estimate of future earnings because of the mass 
production of inventions by gigantic research labora- 
tories, bettered business management, merger econ-