Over the past week the Dow has lost about 500 points, but this week’s move lower is nothing like what happened exactly 20 years ago today…a date lovingly referenced as Black Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 22% – enough to reduce the outstanding value of all U.S. stocks by $500 billion. In spite of this major drop in value though, the DJIA still finished the year up 5.7%. Here are some more numbers to chew on:
-It took the stock market 1 year and 1 day to recover to its pre-Black Monday level. on 10/16/87 the S&P 500 closed at 283, and the next time it reached that level was 10/20/88.
-After Black Monday’s record meltdown, the S&P posted the largest single-day point gain ever with 11.99 points (+5.3%). That record lasted only one day though, as the index went on to gain 21.55 points on Wednesday.
-In the 3 trading days prior to Black Monday, the S&P was already down 10.1%.
-Prior to the Dow’s 22.6% drop on Black Monday, the previous worst single-day drop was a 12.8% loss on 10/28/29. This date is generally considered to be the start of the Great Depression in the United States.
-Prior to Black Monday’s rough ride back down, the S&P hit an all-time high earlier in the year – up an amazing 41.2% YTD.
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