Bubbles & Manias
Bubbles & Manias
The Japanese Asset Bubble: When Tokyo Was Worth More Than California (1985-1990)
How the Plaza Accord, ultra-low interest rates, and a culture of financial invincibility inflated Japan's stock and real estate markets to absurd heights before a crash that produced the longest…
Market Histories Research
The Dot-Com Bubble: Irrational Exuberance and the Internet Gold Rush (1995-2000)
How the promise of the internet fueled a speculative mania that drove the NASDAQ to 5,048 before a crash that wiped out $5 trillion in market value and reshaped the…
Market Histories Research
The South Sea Bubble: When Britain Gambled on a Trading Company
The rise and collapse of the South Sea Company in 1720 ruined thousands of British investors, famously including Isaac Newton, and exposed the dangers of government-backed financial schemes.
Market Histories Research
The Railway Mania: Britain's Victorian Tech Bubble (1840s)
How a revolutionary new technology sparked a speculative frenzy in 1840s Britain, with eerie parallels to the dot-com bubble 150 years later.
Market Histories Research
Tulip Mania: The World's First Speculative Bubble (1637)
How a rare flower bulb became the center of history's most famous speculative frenzy in the Dutch Golden Age, with single bulbs trading for the price of canal houses.
Market Histories Research
The Mississippi Bubble: John Law and the First Paper Money Catastrophe (1716-1720)
How a Scottish gambler convinced France to bet its entire economy on paper money and a colonial trading monopoly, triggering history's first hyperinflationary collapse.
Market Histories Research