Nasdaq · October 19, 1987
Black Monday on the Nasdaq
-11.35%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
Black Monday on the Nasdaq
near the end of it · 1987-08-27 → 1987-10-28, -35.96% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- 19 October 1987 — Nasdaq Composite fell 11.35%
- Smaller drop than the NYSE, but a different failure mode
- Nasdaq then ran on market makers quoting prices over the telephone
- As selling flooded in, many simply stopped answering. Prices stayed on screen while trades couldn't execute
- Fell 35.96% from peak
- Pushed Nasdaq toward automated order handling — the market had learned that when humans stop picking up, the market stops
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 written from the sources listed above.