Black Monday triggered a global stock market crash
On this day · 19 October 1987
On October 19, 1987, the Dow Jones fell 22.6 percent in a single day, the steepest one-day percentage drop in its history.
On October 19, 1987 — “Black Monday” — Wall Street fell off a cliff. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 508 points to close at 1,738.74, a loss of 22.6 percent in a single session. It remains the largest one-day percentage decline in the index’s history.
The panic was global before New York even opened. Selling that began in Asian markets rolled westward, and computer-driven “portfolio insurance” strategies poured automatic sell orders into a market with almost no buyers, deepening the rout.
In hours, the crash erased a sizable share of the world’s paper wealth.
The response set a template for decades to come. The Federal Reserve moved quickly to provide liquidity, conducting earlier-than-usual open-market operations and publicly affirming its readiness to support the financial system. The reassurance worked: markets steadied, and the feared second Great Depression never arrived. The Dow recovered much of the loss within days and surpassed its pre-crash peak within two years.
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