Q 01/05

What nickname is given to October 29, 1929, when panicked investors traded some 16 million shares in a single day?

A) Black Monday

B) Black Friday

C) Black Tuesday

D) Black Thursday

Answer · why

C) Black Tuesday

Black Tuesday wiped out about $14 billion of stock value, and some shares found no buyers at any price.

Q 02/05

Shanty towns built by the homeless after the 1929 crash were mockingly named after which US president?

A) Calvin Coolidge

B) Warren G. Harding

C) Woodrow Wilson

D) Herbert Hoover

Answer · why

D) Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover, in office when the market fell, was widely blamed for the slump, so the camps became Hoovervilles. An empty pocket turned inside out w...

Q 03/05

Which risky 1920s practice left brokers' loans by August 1929 larger than all the US currency in circulation?

A) Buying on margin

B) Dollar-cost averaging

C) Buying at par

D) Pyramid selling

Answer · why

A) Buying on margin

Buying on margin meant putting down part of a share's price and borrowing the rest from a broker. When prices fell, lenders called in the money and fo...

Q 04/05

Which politician was governor of New York, home of Wall Street, when the stock market crashed in October 1929?

A) Alfred E. Smith

B) Fiorello H. La Guardia

C) Franklin D. Roosevelt

D) Thomas E. Dewey

Answer · why

C) Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt had been governor for under a year, and weeks before the crash he set up a state committee to look into utility securities. He w...

Q 05/05

The Dow Jones did not climb back to its September 1929 peak until which US president was in office?

A) Harry S. Truman

B) Dwight D. Eisenhower

C) Lyndon B. Johnson

D) Richard Nixon

Answer · why

B) Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House when the index finally passed its old high in November 1954, a full 25 years after the peak.