Blog

When a stock market experiences a crash, it is the effect of economic events spurring investors to act out of fear. These types of financial crises have appeared frequently throughout history.
In the United States, stock market crashes were documented as early as the 18th century and since then significant financial downturns have had a place in U.S. history.
The term stock market crash refers to a sudden and substantial drop in stock prices. Stock market crashes are often the result of several economic factors, including speculation, panic selling, or economic bubbles, and they may occur amid the fallout of an economic crisis or major catastrophic event.
While there is no official threshold for what qualifies as a stock market crash, a common standard is a rapid double-digit percentage decline in a stock index, such as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index or Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), over a period of several days.
There are measures in place to help prevent a stock market crash, such as trading curbs, or circuit breakers that can halt any trading activity for a specific period following a sudden decline in stock prices.
The first U.S. stock market crash took place in March of 1792. Before the Financial Crisis of 1791 to 1792, the Bank of the United States over-expanded its credit creation, which led to a speculative rise in the securities market. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton cajoled many banks into granting discounts to those in need of credit in multiple cities, in addition to utilizing numerous policies and other measures to stabilize U.S. markets.
While Wall Street's first crash only lasted about one month, it was soon followed by a series of panics that occurred throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the U.S., these include:
Black Friday occurred on Sept. 24, 1869, and saw the collapse of the gold market after two speculators, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, concocted a scheme to drive up the price of gold. The duo also recruited Abel Rathbone Corbin to convince President Ulysses S. Grant to further limit the metal’s availability to ensure their plan was successful.
President Grant ordered the sale of $4,000,000 in government gold in response. Although Gould and Fisk had succeeded in driving up the price of gold, once the government bullion hit the market, panic ensued and the price of gold plummeted. Investors desperately tried to sell their holdings and, as many had taken out loans to finance their purchases, were left without any money to pay back their debts in the aftermath.
Dutch Tulip Bulb Market Bubble, also known as Tulipmania, is the earliest-known stock market crash. During the mid-1630s, tulips became widely popular as a status symbol in Holland and, as a result, speculation caused the value of tulip bulbs to increase. By 1636, the demand for tulips became so large that speculators began to trade in what were essentially tulip futures. In February 1637, however, the tulip bubble burst as the market fell apart.
Image by Sabrina Jiang © Investopedia 2021
Prior to the Wall Street crash of 1929, share prices had risen to unprecedented levels. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) had increased six-fold from 64 in August 1921 to 381 in September 1929. At the end of the market day on Oct. 24, 1929, known as Black Thursday, the market was at 299.5, a 21% decline.
A selling panic had begun and the following week, on Oct. 28, the Dow declined approximately 13%. On Black Tuesday, the market dropped again by nearly 12%. The crash lasted until 1932, resulting in the Great Depression, a time in which stocks had lost nearly 90% of their value. The Dow didn’t fully recover until November of 1954.
Two factors are commonly cited as the primary triggers of the crash including an attempt by governors of many Federal Reserve Banks and a majority of the Federal Reserve Board to combat market speculation and a major expansion of investment trusts, public utility holding companies, and the amount of margin buying.
The Recession of 1937 to 1938 hit as the midst of recovering from the Great Depression. The primary causes of this recession are believed to be Federal Reserve and Treasury Department policies that caused a contraction in the money supply, in addition to other contractionary fiscal policies. As a result, real GDP fell 10%, while unemployment hit 20%, having already declined considerably after 1933.
In the year leading up to the recession, Fed policymakers doubled reserve requirement ratios to reduce excess bank reserves. Meanwhile, in late June 1936, the Treasury began to sterilize gold inflows by keeping them out of the monetary base, which halted their effect on monetary expansion. Once the Fed and the Treasury reversed their policies and the Roosevelt administration began pursuing expansionary fiscal policies, the recession ended.
The Kennedy slide of 1962 was a flash crash, during which the DJIA fell 5.7%, its second-largest point decline ever at that time. This crash occurred following a run-up in the market that had lured many investors into a false sense of security, with stocks having risen 27% in 1961.
When the break happened, fear quickly spread. Households significantly reduced their purchases of stocks, leading to 8% of stockbrokers bailing the market throughout 1962.
Oct. 19, 1987, is known as Black Monday following the first financial crisis of the modern global era. The DJIA lost over $500 billion after dropping 22.6%, the largest one-day stock market decline in history. Preceding the event, the federal government disclosed a larger-than-expected trade deficit and the dollar fell in value, undermining investor confidence, and leading to volatility in the markets. Before the U.S. crash, markets in and around Asia plunged followed by New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Mexico.
Black Monday causes include an increase in international investors' activity in U.S. markets. In the years that followed, regulators introduced reforms to address the structural flaws that allowed Black Monday to occur such as stocks, options, and futures markets using different timelines for the clearing and settlements of trades. Trade-clearing protocols were overhauled to instill uniformity in all prominent market products. The first circuit breakers were also put in place so that exchanges could halt trading temporarily in instances of exceptionally large price declines.
The Friday the 13th mini-crash occurred on Oct. 13, 1989. That Friday, a stock market crash resulted in a 6.91% drop in the Dow. Prior to this, a leveraged buyout deal for UAL, United Airlines' parent company, had fallen through. As the crash had transpired mere minutes after this announcement, it was quickly identified as the cause of the crash. However, this idea is considered unlikely, given that UAL only accounted for a fraction of 1% of the stock market's total value. One theory is that the deal's failure was seen as a watershed moment, foreshadowing the failure of other pending buyouts.
Since no concrete arguments have been offered explaining why this was a watershed event, it's possible this was simply an attempt to make sense of the chaos in the financial markets. When the market reopened on Monday, investors had largely shrugged off the prior week's plunge and had one of the heaviest trading days on record. This event was considered a mini-crash since the percentage loss was relatively small, particularly in comparison to the other crashes listed here.
The early 1990s recession began in July 1990 and ended in March 1991. Comparatively short-lived and relatively mild, it contributed to George H.W. Bush's re-election defeat in 1992. Following another recession just three years prior, the collapse of the savings-and-loan industry in the mid-1980s, and the U.S. Federal Reserve's interest rate increase in the late 1980s, this recession was sparked by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in the summer of 1990.

The dot-com bubble formed as a result of a surge of investments in the internet and technology stocks. The start-up hype led t18 months tripling in value over an 18-month period, peaking in March 2000. By December of 2000, that same index had lost more than half of its value when the bubble burst and wouldn’t fully recover until early 2017.
Massive amounts of venture capital were dumped into tech and internet startups, while investors purchased shares in these companies on the hope of success. The crash wiped out $5 trillion U.S. in technology-firm market value between March and October of 2002.
The bear market from 2007 to 2009 lasted a total of one year and three months. The S&P 500 lost 51.9% of its value. While this event can't be considered a true stock market crash it's still worth noting based on the steep losses.
The financial crisis of 2007 to 2008, also known as the Subprime Mortgage Crisis, resulted from the U.S. housing market collapse and ultimately led to the Great Recession. Over two years before the crisis, the Fed had been steadily raising the federal funds rate from 1.25% to 5.25%, which led to escalating numbers of subprime borrowers defaulting on loans.
By 2008, the U.S. Treasury Department had to nationalize the country's two biggest home lenders, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to prevent their collapse. Later that year, the investment bank Lehman Brothers filed the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, and in October 2008, the U.S. government approved a bailout package to protect the U.S. financial system and promote economic growth.
On May 6, 2010, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq 100, and the Russell 2000 collapsed and rebounded within a 36-minute timespan. Approximately $1 trillion in market cap was wiped out on the DJIA, though it recovered 70% of its decline by end of the trading day.
In a joint study released by the CFTC and SEC in September 2010, they concluded that the flash crash was the result of a convergence of several factors, primarily a large volume of E-mini S&P 500 futures trading, illegal manipulative trading of many E-minis, and electronic liquidity providers pulling back on quotes once stocks began to plummet.
On Aug. 8, 2011, the U.S. and global stock markets fell as a weakening U.S. economy and a widening debt crisis in Europe dampened investor confidence. Before this event, the U.S. received a credit downgrade from Standard & Poor's (S&P) for the first time in history amid an earlier debt ceiling impasse. Although the political gridlock was ultimately resolved, S&P saw the agreement as falling short of what was needed to repair the nation's finances.
The 2015 to 2016 stock market selloff was a sersell-offobal sell-offs that took place over a one-year time frame beginning in June 2015. In the U.S., the DJIA fell 530.94, or approximately 3.1%, on Aug. 21, 2015. The market volatility initially began in China as investors were sold shares globally amid a slew of tumultuous economic circumstances, including the end of quantitative easing in the U.S., a fall in petroleum prices, the Greek debt default, and the Brexit vote.
The 2020 coronavirus stock market crash is the most recent U.S. crash, which occurred due to panic selling following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 16, the drop in stock prices was so sudden and dramatic that multiple trading halts were triggered in a single day. From Feb. 12 to March 23, the DJIA lost 37% of its value and NYSE trading was suspended several times.
The stock market rebounded and on Aug. 18, the S&P 500 was hitting record highs. On Nov. 24, 2020, the DJIA crossed 30,000 for the first time in history.
Below is a list of other notable crashes that affected the U.S. but are considered global events.
During Black Monday, on Oct. 19, 1987, the DJIA fell by 22.6% in a single trading session. This marks the largest one-day stock market decline in history.
There are several steps you can take to minimize the impact of a stock market crash on your portfolio. One of the most important is to ensure you've diversified your portfolio across multiple sectors, such as stocks, bonds, cash, and real estate.
The October effect refers to a perceived market anomaly that stocks tend to decline in October, based on the fact that crashes, such as the Wall Street crash of 1929 and Black Monday occurred during this month. In fact, over the last 20 years, October has been one of the best months for stock growth. September has experienced more historically downward markets.
As a result of market cycles, stock market crashes and downtrends are an inherent risk of investing. Market downtrends don’t always result in a crash and although 2020’s crash won’t be the last one the U.S. will experience, it’s not clear how long it will be before we see the next one. Additionally, the most recent stock market crash makes for an excellent case study as to how quick, smart federal intervention can mitigate the effects of a crash.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York. "Crisis Chronicles: Tulip Mania, 1633-37."
Library of Congress. "The Black Monday Stock Market Crash."
Harvard Business School. "1873: The Hard Times."
The Library of Congress. "The Panic of 1857 Began."
Federal Reserve History. "Banking Panics of the Gilded Age."
Federal Reserve History. "The Panic of 1907."
Federal Reserve Bank of New York. "Crisis Chronicles: The Gold Panic of 1869, America’s First Black Friday."
Federal Reserve History. "Stock Market Crash of 1929."
Federal Reserve History. "Recession of 1937–38."
The Wall Street Journal. "Back to the Future: Lessons From the Forgotten 'Flash Crash' of 1962."
Federal Reserve History. "Stock Market Crash of 1987."
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. "Trading Analysis of October 27 and 28, 1997."
First Trust. "History of U.S. Bear & Bull Markets."
Federal Reserve System. "Open Market Operations."
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. "Findings Regarding the Market Events of May 6, 2010."
Yahoo Finance. "Stock Market News for August 24, 2015."
Marketwatch. "Dow Jones Industrial Average."
Marketwatch. "S&P 500 Index."
Federal Reserve Bank of New York. "Crisis Chronicles: The Credit and Commercial Crisis of 1772."
Bank of England. "Our History."
U.S. Department of the Treasury. "Financial Panic of 1873."
Library of Congress. "The Panic of 1873."
Blockchain.com. "Bitcoin."
LPL Research. “Is October Really Scary?”
Macroeconomics
Markets
Economics
Rich & Powerful
Financial Fraud
Economics
When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site.

source