Black Monday

Black Monday is the name given to the stock market crash that occurred on October 19, 1987. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) fell 22.6%, or 508 points, in a single day. This was the largest one-day percentage decline in the history of the DJIA.

The crash was caused by a number of factors, including:

• The deregulation of the financial industry in the 1980s, which led to increased risk-taking by investors.
• The rise of the junk bond market, which allowed companies to take on more debt than they could afford.
• The collapse of the real estate market in the late 1980s, which led to losses for many investors.

The crash had a number of negative consequences, including:

• The loss of trillions of dollars in wealth.
• The loss of jobs.
• A decline in consumer confidence.
• A recession in the United States and other countries.

The crash led to a number of reforms in the financial industry, including:

• The creation of the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, which consolidated the regulation of the financial industry under one agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
• The creation of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which exempted over-the-counter derivatives from regulation.
• The creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which imposed new corporate governance requirements on public companies.

The reforms were intended to prevent a similar crash from happening again. However, the financial crisis of 2008 showed that the reforms were not enough to prevent another major financial crisis.