Black Tuesday

Black Tuesday. Even the term Black Tuesday evokes negative connotations of dread and fear. Almost 80 years after the stock market crash of 1929, investors are shaken by the specter that Black Tuesday cast upon the public markets. On this fateful day, millionaires joined the ranks of the poor again, and the entire financial markets of the United States were humbled.

People had been burned by investing in stock market before, but never in the magnitude they experienced on October 29th, 1929. 16.4 million shares were traded on that day, a record that wouldn't be surpassed for 40 years. The high volume saw mostly sellers looking to get out while the bottom had already fallen out. Few buyers stepped in. Even efforts by the Rockefeller family to bail out the stock market by purchasing shares failed to stop the bleeding.

Black Tuesday was dark indeed

The DJIA lost 12% of its' total value that day. The ticker for trades did not stop running until late in the evening. The market lost $14 billion in value that day, bringing the loss for the week to a staggering $30 billion. The pain could be felt by nearly all involved.

What hurt people the most was that it signaled the end of an era that had involved unbridled optimism based on the "can't miss" technologies of the times. The stock market had been the recipient of a nearly meteoric rise in the years preceding the crash, and many people were genuinely caught off guard. This is a phenomena that has repeated itself on numerous occasions over the year.