The S&P 500 has gained 12.65% in 2026 and closed Friday at 7,711.75, but a Wall Street Journal column warns that today's trading frenzy resembles 1901, not 1999, and that boom ended in the Panic of 1907. Columnist Jason Zweig argues the danger was never expensive stocks but borrowed money and gambling-like trading. He points to NYSE turnover reaching 319% in 1901, with the entire market changing hands every four months, and draws parallels to today's same-day options, which made up 66.2% of all S&P 500 options volume in July, an all-time high, and margin debt reaching $1.42 trillion in July, up from $1.02 trillion a year earlier. The 1907 panic was triggered by a failed corner on United Copper, leading to runs on trust companies that kept only 5% of deposits in cash, and call money rates spiked from 9.5% to 70%, then 100%, before J.P. Morgan intervened and Congress created the Federal Reserve six years later. The Dow lost 40.9% from its December 1906 peak to the November 1907 bottom, and with the Shiller P/E near 42 versus a long-run average of 17.4, Zweig's warning is quieter but harder to hedge.
