From the general account given above of the successive phases of a credit cycle, it is possible to summarize the course of interest rates and the course of business conditions. Money rates become suddenly easy after a crisis, remain low or grow easier for a period of several years, and then rise continuously until the next crisis, advancing with great rapidity toward the close of the cycle. Business conditions remain poor or grow worse a few years after a crisis. Liquidation is taking place, prices are going down, and the uncertainty of the outlook causes diminished activity. Thereafter, however, conditions improve and activity increases with fair uniformity until it reaches the high tension of the period immediately preceding the crisis. The course of interest rates and the course of business conditions may both be deflected by the operation of special influences, but the general tendencies are substantially as outlined. The result of the operation of these joint factors may be traced in the market movements of any class of security desired. For the sake of simplicity, let us consider their effect in producing the market swings of the highest grade of investment issues and of the lowest grade, those which are affected only by money rates and those which are affected almost wholly by business conditions. Emerging from the strain of the crisis at their lowest point, high-grade bonds, such as the best municipal and railroad issues, advance rapidly as interest rates decline, continuing their advancing tendency throughout the period of business depression which follows upon the heels of the crisis. As business conditions improve, their position, while perfectly secure before, is further strengthened and an added stimulus is given to their rise. About the middle of the cycle when the business outlook is very promising, and before interest rates have sustained any material advance, the prices of high-grade bonds are usually at their highest point. From that time forward they commence to decline, in spite of the increasing prosperity of the country, under the influence of rising money rates. They make their lowest prices in the midst of the crisis, when the strain upon capital is greatest and the outlook for business most unpromising. The lowest grade of bonds, on the other hand (whose margin of security is least), do not commence to recover materially in price, in spite of the influence of low money rates during the hard times which follow the crisis, the influence of reduced earnings and the fear of default of interest holding them in check. As the outlook becomes brighter, they advance rapidly and continue to improve in price so long as they yield more than current money rates. At some point, difficult to determine in advance but usually well along toward the end of the cycle, they reach their high point and thereafter decline under the influence of the growing stringency in money.