DARK, SOMBER, FANTASTIC MOMENTS IN WALL STREET HISTORY:
March 14, 1907: The San Francisco earthquake (foreshadowing Fukushima?) set the stage for the crash of 1907. The Dow lost more than 8%, closing at 76.23. A combination of inflated interest rates and land values fueled the panic of 1907.
October 24, 1929: On Black Thursday NYSE shares plummeted. Panic prevailed and $5 billion evaporated as 13 million shares traded. This meltdown “began” the Great Depression which lasted until World War II.
October 28, 1929: The Dow fell 13%, a record loss. The modicum of confidence that glimmered the week before was gone.
October 29, 1929: Black Tuesday! Confidence tumbled. The ticker tape lagged by nearly two hours. 16 million shares were traded, a record which held for 40 years. The Dow finished with a 12% loss.
July 8, 1932: The Dow closed at 42.22, an 89% drop from its peak. Confidence was dealt a new, low blow. The “New Deal” was about to be launched.
October 19, 1987: The Dow fell 22% (508 points). Hong Kong fell 45.5%. Australia fell 41.8%. Spain fell 26.5%/ Britain fell 26.5%, and so forth and so on.
September 17, 2001: After a four-day closure triggered by the 9/11 attacks, stocks plunged to three-year lows, nearly 7%.
February 27, 2007: Known as the “Chinese Correction,” the SSE Composite Index of the Shanghai Stock Exchange fell 9% triggering major drops in world markets.
September 15, 2008: The fall of Lehman Brothers (with more than $600 billion in assets) became etched as the largest bankruptcy in American history together with the “fire sale” of Merrill Lynch (the country’s largest brokerage firm) culminating in a 504 point loss in the Dow. And! AIG was “provided” with an $85 billion credit line by the United States government. Quite a day.
September 29, 2008: The Dow dropped 400 points in ten minutes; more than $1.2 trillion evaporates from the market. The House of Representatives was just not going to pass Bush’s $700 million bailout for financial institutions. “Six of one, half a dozen of another.”
May 6, 2010: The flash crash. The DOW drops nearly 1,000 points in intra-day trading before partially recovering.
And the hits just keep rolling along…
Indeed, we do live in a money-mad world.
