According to the second section, “market leaders hard hit,” why was it significant that stocks like united states steel, general electric, and western union were hit so hard by the drop?
those companies were among the country’s strongest stocks.
those companies were a bit unstable, always leading the way up or down.
those companies establish the stock market, so their stocks had special importance.

The Stocks of companies like General Electric, Western Union and United States Steel, were hit so hard by the drop because those companies were among the country’s strongest stocks. These companies were leaders of the stock market and everyone was interested in buying or investing only in these companies.

This was the reason that these companies or ‘Market leaders’ hard hit the stock exchange market.  The New York Exchange is also known as “The Big Board” is the largest stock exchange market of the world by market capitalization of its listed companies at US$30.1 trillion by February 2018.

- encouraging nationalism

- returning to conservative political policies