Black Tuesday: Stock Crash Triggers Great Depression
The New York Stock Exchange collapsed on October 29, 1929, as 16.4 million shares were traded in a single session, a record that stood for nearly 40 years. The ticker tape ran four hours behind actual trades. Investors, unable to determine their losses in real time, sold blindly. The Dow Jones fell 12% in one day. Margin buyers were wiped out. Banks that had lent money for stock speculation failed. Combined with Black Thursday and Black Monday the previous week, the crash destroyed roughly $30 billion in market value, equivalent to $500 billion today. The crash didn't cause the Great Depression by itself, but it shattered consumer and business confidence, triggering a cascade of bank failures, business closures, and unemployment that spread from Wall Street to every farm and factory in America.
October 29, 1929
97 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on October 29
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