Much will be made today of the anniversary of the stock market crash of Oct. 29, 1929, how Black Tuesday sparked the Great Depression, and the resonance the event has in today’s economy. There are of course lots of parallels. Back on Sept. 3, 1929, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had hit its peak for the year, at 381.17. Black Tuesday came at the end of several days of sharp losses, beginning on Oct. 24, accelerating on Black Monday, Oct. 28, and finishing with the Dow closing at just 230.07.
How does that crash compare to those of more recent vintage? Well, larger one-day point losses is a clear difference, with last year’s crash and that of 2001 racking up the highest on record. Yet it is Black Monday, 1987, that claims the largest one-day percentage drop in the Dow’s history, with a loss of 22.61%. Oct. 28 and 29, 1929, are close behind on that scale, scoring second and third respectively: On the 28th, the Dow fell 12.82%, and another 11.73% on Black Tuesday. Despite fleeting bounces and rallies, the Dow didn’t hit bottom until July 1932, having lost 89% from its peak in September 1929 – and it wouldn’t climb above that peak until 1954. Some economists who have studied the period, including current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, have argued that monetary policy mistakes by the Fed made it more difficult for the country to recover from the crisis.
A couple other points of comparison: In 1929, the country was still on the gold standard. The highest-grossing film of the year, “The Broadway Melody,” brought in $2.8 million at the domestic box office, 35 cents at a time. The Dow was made up of companies like U.S. Steel, Standard Oil, General Railway Signal, American Sugar and American Can – as well as General Electric, Chrysler and General Motors.
The panicky day of the crash set a trading volume record of more than 16 million shares. Nowadays, even an average day sees billions of shares traded. Here are the top 10 stocks by trading volume for that momentous Black Tuesday:
| Company | Volume |
|---|---|
| * Dow component. Data courtesy of the Center for Research in Security Prices at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. | |
| 1. General Motors Corporation* | 971,300 |
| 2. Radio Corporation of America* | 382,200 |
| 3. Anaconda Copper Mining Company | 381,500 |
| 4. Commonwealth & Southern Corporation | 354,200 |
| 5. International Nickel Company* | 308,700 |
| 6. United States Steel Corporation* | 307,300 |
| 7. Standard Oil* | 293,300 |
| 8. Packard Motor Company | 290,400 |
| 9. Montgomery Ward & Co. | 285,800 |
| 10. United Corporation | 276,300 |