S&P 500 · November 9, 1987

Aftershock three weeks on

-2.89%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The Black Monday slide

near the end of it · 1987-08-25 → 1987-12-04, -33.51% over the whole period

What happened that day?

9 November 1987 — the S&P 500 fell 2.89% to close at 243.17. No single cause can be pinned to the day
Three weeks earlier, on 19 October, this index had recorded the largest one-day fall in its history. November was the aftershock
Right after the crash, big recoveries and fresh falls came in turns. The next session fell again as well
The worry of the moment was the dollar. Cutting the trade deficit was said to require a lower dollar, and lower is what it was doing
A falling dollar costs foreign holders of American assets on the exchange rate alone, which gives them a reason to sell
The low of this episode was 4 December. From the late-August high the fall was 33.51%
The real economy did not stop. The crash happened in finance and the factories kept running

Sources

Every figure on this page is recomputed from the original daily closing prices and checked against them at build time. The account of what happened is put together from the public record; where a specific source was consulted it is listed above.