Friday, October 23, 2009

80 Years Ago Today

Was the day before "Black Thursday" the first of the four horsemen of the crash of 1929 (the others being Black Friday, Black Monday, and Black Tuesday - presumably the weekend wasn't a picnic, either).

In commemoration of these four, or possibly six, days of horror we're throwing ourselves, not off a building, but into a new website. Starting on Black Tuesday (October 29th), we'll be all moved out of this blog and into our new digs.

Although October 24th is the official first day of the crash, the erosion had begun more than a month before. The market hit its high (381!) on September 3rd and it was mostly downhill from there.

Roger Babson gets blamed for sending the market into its death spiral by, on September 5th, predicting a "terrific" crash. It is hard to imagine that one person, no matter how smart or respected, could wield that kind of power over a confident market.

In the days between the high and Black Thursday, as the market went down, investment companies started to get out and small investors booby-trapped the market by setting stop-loss orders and buying on margin.

The week beginning Monday, October 21st started with a loss and just got worse. At the end of the day on October 23rd, the NYSE was down 13%.

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