Nasdaq · October 28, 1987
Black Monday on the Nasdaq
-35.96%
peak-to-trough, the whole slide
43 trading days · 1987-08-27 → 1987-10-28
back to the old high on 1989-08-03
What happened that day?
- From the 27 August 1987 peak to the 28 October low the Nasdaq fell 35.96% — 43 trading days
- Black Monday, 19 October, sits in the middle of that stretch
- The Nasdaq was an over-the-counter market then, and trading worked differently. If the dealer who took your order did not answer the phone, you simply could not sell
- On the day of the crash many dealers were unreachable, so holders who wanted out could not get out
- Because of this, Nasdaq was later required to run a system that executed small orders automatically
- The old high returned on 3 August 1989 — longer than it took the exchange-listed names
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.