Everything Everywhere Daily · Friday, October 2, 2026
Economist Irving Fisher, a highly respected figure in early 20th-century economics, made a famously incorrect prediction on October 15, 1929, stating that stock prices had reached a 'permanently high plateau.' This statement proved disastrously wrong as the stock market crashed just days later.
“stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”
“Largely through the influence of the investment trust movement, the public has been waking up to the superior attraction of stocks over bonds. And I believe the operation of investment trusts as a whole have acted to stabilize the stock market rather than to make its fluctuations more violent.”
“It wasn't just that he was wrong, it's that he was wrong just days before everything fell apart.”