Black Thursday began the Wall Street Crash
On this day · 24 October 1929
On a single panic-stricken morning in 1929, the floor of the New York Stock Exchange buckled and an era of easy riches collapsed.
On Thursday, October 24, 1929 — soon branded Black Thursday — the New York Stock Exchange opened to a wall of sell orders. In the first three minutes alone, nearly three million shares changed hands, and by the close a record of roughly 13 million shares had traded as prices buckled. The market shed about 11 percent of its value at the opening bell, and the ticker tape ran hours behind, leaving investors blind to what their holdings were actually worth.
The panic that began that morning did not end there. Selling intensified the following week, culminating in Black Monday (October 28) and Black Tuesday (October 29), when more than 16 million shares were dumped. From Thursday through Tuesday, stocks lost more than $26 billion in value.
The most significant events started on Black Thursday, October 24, 1929.
The crash shattered confidence in the banking system and is widely treated as the opening act of the Great Depression, the deepest economic slump of the twentieth century.
Sources & references
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