A photo from open sources
The American economy was supposed to collapse 28 years ago.
October 19, 1987 went down in US history as Black Monday. On this day, the American economy was closer than ever to its crash.
Previous days
October 14th New York passed in the usual craziness to the cheers of brokers who made a good deal and curses of the lost. But in the evening, brokers suffered a shock: the index The Dow Jones fell 96 points. It was the deepest fall in the whole history of the New York Stock Exchange.
The next day ended in a fall of 58 points, and on October 16 – at 108! The exchange broke the fall record twice in 3 days, which was not promised nothing good. But what does not happen in the world of capital! Exchange Analysts were sure that Monday would put everything in its place. But they were wrong.
Black monday
In the morning, trading opened not with growth, but with a fall. number transactions made went up sharply, and all sold. Nearly immediately the super-speed computer of the new york stock exchange could not stand it the abundance of operations and freezes. Operations continued, but the computer performed operations with a delay of 85 minutes. Exchange situation changes every second, brokers make dozens of transactions in an hour, reacting to the slightest fluctuations in stock prices. 15-20 late minutes – an emergency, and in 85 it just killed the stock exchange. The stock market has been peddling. Stock prices did not just decline, they flew down.
At 13 o’clock David Ruther, Chairman of the Securities Commission and exchanges, expressed his opinion live on the need suspension of trading, which only spurred a panic. In half Fourth, it became clear that the market began to crumble on the principle of dominoes, each bankrupt company dragged along 2-3 others. The delay by evening became catastrophic – 3 hours. At 17:00 the stock exchange closed, recording a fall of the Dow Jones index by 508 points, with 300 of them in the last hour of trading.
A photo from open sources
The US economy is on the verge of destruction
In just a day, America has lost a third of its innumerable wealth. Hundreds of companies could consider themselves bankrupt. Henceforth they could not count on either loans or investments, because their stocks were no longer worth anything. Tons of once securities now it was possible to glue the walls. New York Stock Exchange Head John Philan offered to close the auction.
The collapse of October 19, 1987 surpassed the scale of disaster October 29, 1929, which launched the wheel of the Great Depression, from which the US was able to come out only in the mid-40s and thanks to Second World War. Then the index fell by 12% (in 1987 – 22.6%). White House officials were in prostration: it was really the end of the world. The next day was supposed to collapse the whole western economy.
The rescue
President of the Federal Reserve Bank became the angel-savior New York Gerald Corrigan. He convinced the authorities that there was no way to crash no economic prerequisites, persuaded not to close the exchange and allocate billions of dollars from the federal to save the situation backup system. The market survived, America was saved. And although The consequences of Black Monday affected all over the world (towards the end October exchanges in the UK lost 26.4%, Hong Kong – 45.8%, Canada – 22.5%, Australia – 41.8%), hundreds of companies went bankrupt and dozens of people, the collapse of the Western economy did not happen. But what has become its cause? And here oddities begin.
Stock market crash
The official reason is considered excessive use software trading, they say, computers could not cope sharply increased number of transactions, which brought the situation out of control. But What triggered a sharp surge in activity on the exchange?
As Corrigan rightly determined, there were no economic background. The stock exchange agrees with him. analysts, this was confirmed by life itself: the situation on the stock exchange stabilized during the day, and the market straightened through two years. No second Great Depression happened.
The investigation revealed that the collapse began with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, where for some reason mass sales of assets began for bargain prices. The process spread to Australia, Europe and only then hit the USA. What kind of madness swept the little ones holders of shares that they conspired among themselves, first bought everything that was at hand, and then at the same time threw away the purchased at bargain prices? Apparently, the process was manageable.
Suspect that one of the major Western financiers organized a panic to buy up cheaply depreciated assets companies are stupid. What is the goal of becoming a king in the ashes? -among there are no such oligarchs. And the scale is not the same. Remains external diversion.
The hand of Moscow?
Since 1983, under the roof of Vnesheconombank, gold and currency have been massively exported from the USSR to VEB branches in London, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. Gold was sold, and the proceeds were dissolved in offshore accounts. Almost a thousand tons of gold evaporated somewhere. The version that it was on this gold that Black was organized Monday, it looks quite reasonable.
In 1987, seeing how the Soviet economy was gradually losing ground positions in the fight against the West, the leaders of the USSR could well decide to overthrow the USA by organizing an exchange crisis. One can only guess what the world would look like if the blow were fatal.
Australia USSR USA Economy
