IDNeon

Wells Fargo: A Growth Stock During the Great Depression?

This is an unrelated circumstance, during the Depression people were moving to California for cheap work on recently opened agricultural land, opened by government programs such as the Hoover Dam which provided water to the Imperial Valley.

If you look at the number of accounts opened versus the value of deposits, you can clearly see that the people creating new accounts during the depression were in some way wealthier than those already holding accounts, suggesting WFC was expanding into a void in a relatively new market. Today it's grown rather sizeable in its old market venue and has to compete in all other markets. What WFC has going for it now is not what was going for it 70 years ago. Still strong though.