A tariff-fueled stock market decline over the last few days has stoked “Black Monday” fears among nervous investors.
The big picture: The comparison is mostly overblown. The S&P 500’s 11% decline over the last three sessions, while steep, is nothing like the uncontrolled crash that roiled markets 37 years ago.
Black Monday was “the first contemporary global financial crisis,” per research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, taking place on October 19, 1987.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 22.6% that day “following a chain reaction of market distress,” which is still the largest one-day stock market decline in history. At the time, it was the sharpest U.S. market downturn since the Great Depression.
- The day demonstrated how interconnected financial markets across the world had become, the Fed researchers write. Before the U.S. markets had even opened for trading that Monday, stock markets in and around Asia plunged, which caused a domino effect.
The intrigue: Black Monday’s chaotic plunge led to the trading halt rules and so-called circuit breaker mechanisms that exchanges utilize today to stave off panic selling during rapid market sell-offs.
Are we in a repeat of Black Monday?
- U.S. stocks did fall steeply again at the open on Monday, and then whipsawed in a highly volatile session as investors jumped on every headline related to a potential tariff pause, including one that proved to be erroneous.
- But by Monday’s close, the S&P 500 and Dow Jones indexes closed down less than 1%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq actually closed in the green.
💠Our thought bubble, via Axios’ chief financial correspondent Felix Salmon: On Black Monday, stocks fell more than 20% in a single day. This time around, it took more than six weeks for the market to fall that much.
