Beast On Wall Street

It is now abundantly clear that stock volatility is a contagious disease that spreads virulently from market to market around the world. Price changes in one market drive subsequent price changes in that market as well as in others. In Beast, Haugen makes a compelling case for the fact that even under normal conditions, fully 80 percent of stock volatility is price driven. Moreover, this volatility is far from benign. It acts to reduce the level of investment spending and constitutes a significant and permanent drag on economic growth. Price-driven volatility is unstable. Dramatic and unpredictable explosions in price-driven volatility can send stock markets in a downward spiral and cause significant disruptions in economic activity. Haugen argues that this indeed happened in 1929 and 1930. If volatility in Asian markets persists, it can easily become the source of the problem rather than merely a symptom.