Hustler's Empire · Research
By the Numbers
Hustler's Empire is built on a working financial model of Jack Kelley's fortune, benchmarked against the real Dow Jones Industrial Average and cross-checked against historical interest-rate data. This page tracks the shape of that fortune from 1906 through 1929 — and shows what those numbers are worth today, updated automatically for inflation every year you visit.
Section 1
The Arc
The shape of a fortune, 1906 to 1929.
| Year | Milestone | Jack's capital (nominal) |
|---|---|---|
| 1906 | Peak personal trading capital | $176,120 |
| 1907 | The panic — capital under pressure | $156,923 |
| 1908 | Recovery — combined net worth across all accounts | $4,558,979 |
| 1919 | End of the "flat decade" markets | Compounding at 11.13% CAGR through the 1910s |
| 1929 | The novel's closing frame, Lake Como | $26,421,561 |
Section 2
Against the Dow
The model measured against the market of its day.
| Period | The Dow | Jack |
|---|---|---|
| 1906 peak to 1907 trough | 103.00 → 53.00 (−48.5%) | Capital under pressure but preserved |
| 1908–1919 | +8.3% for the entire decade | Compounds at 11.13% annually |
| 1919–1929 | +255% (the boom) | Compounds at 6.36%, largely in cash and short paper |
Jack beats a dead market in the 1910s, then deliberately underperforms a booming one in the 1920s — a choice that matters more than it looks.
Section 3
What It's Worth Today
As of 2026, adjusted for inflation:
1908 net worth
$166,083,599
in 2026 dollars
1929 closing net worth
$962,537,468
in 2026 dollars
Base figures are indexed to 2026 dollars using the historical Consumer Price Index (1908 CPI 9.2 → 2026 CPI 335.1, a 36.43x multiplier). Figures beyond 2026 compound forward at an assumed 4% annual inflation rate, recalculated automatically each time this page loads — so the numbers above are never stale.
These are aggregate figures for the arc of the story — for the full accounting behind every dollar in the manuscript, see our forthcoming annotated edition.
For the historical scholarship behind these figures, see Sources & Reference.