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 collapse
 from the high level of September 7th to the
low average of November 13th—a 42 per cent decline
 in my daily index of daily market prices. Overenthusiasm
 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 general
 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 represented
 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 advantages
 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 laboratories,
 bettered business management, merger econ-