What Is a Stock Market Crash?

Stock market crashes have posed a threat to both U.S. financial markets and citizens throughout history. Here is a timeline detailing each event.

When a stock market crashes, it represents the culmination of a complex array of events that drive unexpected results. Markets can often absorb unexpected events, but if the level of uncertainty implied by these economic events spurs many investors to act out of fear, a market crash is far more likely to happen.

The term stock market crash refers to a sudden and substantial drop in stock prices. Stock market crashes are often the result of several economic factors, including speculation, panic selling, or economic bubbles. They may occur amid the fallout of an economic crisis or major catastrophic event.

There is no official threshold for what qualifies as a stock market crash. But a common standard is the rapid double-digit percentage decline over a period of several days in a stock index, such as the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 Index or Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA).

There are measures in place to help prevent a stock market crash, such as trading curbs or circuit breakers that can halt any trading activity for a specific period following a sudden decline in stock prices.

Early U.S. Stock Market Crashes The first U.S. stock market crash took place in March of 1792. Before the Financial Crisis of 1791 to 1792, the Bank of the United States over-expanded its credit creation, which led to a speculative rise in the securities market.

Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton cajoled many banks into granting discounts to those in need of credit in multiple cities, in addition to utilizing numerous policies and other measures to stabilize U.S. markets.

The first crash only lasted about one month. But it was followed by a series of panics that occurred throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, including:

U.S. Stock Market Crashes Through the Years

• Panic of 1819: A collapse in cotton prices, credit contraction, and over-speculation in land, commodities, and stocks. America's first great economic depression came to an end in 1821.

• Panic of 1837: A real estate bubble and erratic American banking policy. Andrew Jackson refused to extend the Second Bank of the United States' charter, enabling state banks to recklessly issue banknotes. This led to a major six-year economic depression.

• Panic of 1857: The failure of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company. New York bankers put restrictions on transactions that resulted in panic selling. Bank closures and depression followed—the latter of which lasted three years.

• Panic of 1884: The failure of a small number of financial firms in New York City, primarily the Metropolitan National Bank. The institution's closure raised public concerns about the banks in its network. But the crisis was largely contained to New York and swiftly ended.

• Panic of 1893: A run on gold in the U.S. Treasury and slowed economic activity. Unemployment jumped, asset prices plummeted, and panic selling ensued, which caused one of the most severe depressions in U.S. history.

• Panic of 1896: A continuation of the Panic of 1893. There was a brief pause after the last panic before the U.S. economy fell into another recession in late 1895. It wouldn't fully recover until mid-1897.

• Panic of 1901: The result of a struggle between Jacob Schiff, J.P. Morgan, James J. Hill, and E. H. Harriman over the Northern Pacific Railway. Short sellers were caught up in a frenzy as the price of Northern Pacific skyrocketed, causing stocks and bonds to drop dramatically. The panic ended with a truce among the financial titans.

• Panic of 1907: A failed attempt by F. Augustus Heinze and Charles W. Morse to corner the stock of United Copper. The first financial crisis of the 20th century. It spurred the monetary reform movement that led to the establishment of the Federal Reserve System. Several banks associated with the two men succumbed to runs by depositors. This led to runs on numerous trust companies, which resulted in a severe reduction in market liquidity. If not for the intervention of J.P. Morgan, the New York Stock Exchange might have closed.

• Black Friday, 1869: Occurred on Sept. 24, 1869, and saw the collapse of the gold market after two speculators, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, concocted a scheme to drive up the price of gold. The duo also recruited Abel Rathbone Corbin to convince President Ulysses S. Grant to further limit the metal's availability to ensure their plan was successful.

President Grant ordered the sale of $4 million in government gold in response. Although Gould and Fisk succeeded in driving up the price of gold, panic ensued, and the price of gold plummeted once the government bullion hit the market. Investors desperately tried to sell their holdings. Many investors were left without any money to pay back their debts in the aftermath, as they took out loans to finance their purchases.

• Dutch Tulip Bulb Market Bubble: Also known as Tulipmania, it is the earliest-known major market crash—even though it wasn't associated with the trading of stock shares. During the mid-1630s, tulips became widely popular as a status symbol in Holland and, as a result, speculation caused the value of tulip bulbs to increase. By 1636, the demand for tulips became so large that speculators began to trade in what were essentially tulip futures. In February 1637, the tulip bubble burst as the market fell apart.

Contemporary U.S. Stock Market Crashes

• Wall Street Crash of 1929: Prior to the Wall Street crash of 1929, share prices jumped. The DJIA increased as great as six times in August 1921 to 381 in September 1929. At the end of the market day on Oct. 24, 1929, known as Black Thursday, the market was at 299.5, a 21% decline. A selling panic began, and on Oct. 28, the Dow declined approximately 13%. On Black Tuesday, the market dropped again by nearly 12%. The crash lasted until 1932, resulting in the Great Depression, a time in which stocks lost nearly 90% of their value. The Dow didn't fully recover until November of 1954.

Two factors are commonly cited as the primary triggers of the crash, including an attempt by governors of many Federal Reserve Banks and a majority of the Federal Reserve Board to combat market speculation and a major expansion of investment trusts, public utility holding companies, and the amount of margin buying.

• Recession of 1937 to 1938: The Recession of 1937 to 1938 hit in the midst of the recovery from the Great Depression. The primary causes are believed to be Federal Reserve and Treasury Department policies that caused a contraction in the money supply in addition to other contractionary fiscal policies. As a result, real gross domestic product (GDP) fell 10%, while unemployment hit 20%, having already declined considerably after 1933. In the year leading up to the recession, Fed policymakers doubled reserve requirement ratios to reduce excess bank reserves. Meanwhile, in late June 1936, the Treasury began to sterilize gold inflows by keeping them out of the monetary base, which halted their effect on monetary expansion. Once the Fed and the Treasury reversed their policies and the Roosevelt administration began pursuing expansionary fiscal policies, the recession ended.

• Kennedy Slide of 1962: The Kennedy slide of 1962 was a flash crash, during which the DJIA fell 5.7%, its second-largest point decline ever at that time. This crash occurred following a run-up in the market that had lured many investors into a false sense of security, with stocks rising 27% in 1961. When the break happened, fear quickly spread. Households significantly reduced their purchases of stocks, leading to 8% of stockbrokers bailing the market throughout 1962.

• Black Monday: Black Monday followed the first financial crisis of the modern global era, taking place on Oct. 19, 1987. The DJIA lost over $500 billion after dropping 22.6%, the largest one-day stock market decline in history. Preceding the event, the federal government disclosed a larger-than-expected trade deficit, and the dollar fell in value, undermining investor confidence, and leading to volatility in the markets. Increased activity from international investors in U.S. markets was among the causes of Black Monday. Regulators introduced reforms to address the structural flaws that allowed Black Monday to occur, such as stocks, options, and futures markets using different timelines for the clearing and trade settlement. Trade-clearing protocols were overhauled to instill uniformity in all prominent market products. The first circuit breakers were also put in place for temporary halt trading in instances of exceptionally large price declines.

• Friday the 13th: The Friday the 13th mini-crash occurred on Oct. 13, 1989. That Friday, a stock market crash resulted in a 6.91% drop in the Dow. Prior to this, a leveraged buyout (LBO) deal for UAL, United Airlines' parent company, fell through. As the crash transpired mere minutes after this announcement, it was quickly identified as the cause of the crash. However, this idea is considered unlikely, given that UAL only accounted for a fraction of 1% of the stock market's total value. One theory is that the deal's failure was seen as a watershed moment, foreshadowing the failure of other pending buyouts. Since no concrete arguments have been offered explaining why this was a watershed event, it's possible this was simply an attempt to make sense of the chaos in the financial markets. When the market reopened on Monday, investors largely shrugged off the prior week's plunge and had one of the heaviest trading days on record. This event was considered a mini-crash since the percentage loss was relatively small, particularly in comparison to the other crashes listed here.

• 1990s Recession: The early 1990s recession began in July 1990 and ended in March 1991. Comparatively short-lived and relatively mild, it contributed to George H.W. Bush's re-election defeat in 1992. Following another recession just three years prior, the collapse of the savings-and-loan industry in the mid-1980s, and the U.S. Federal Reserve's interest rate increase in the late 1980s, this recession was sparked by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in the summer of 1990.

• Dotcom Bubble: The dotcom bubble formed as a result of a surge of investments in the internet and technology stocks. The start-up hype that drove prices peaked in March 2000. By December 2000, the Nasdaq 100 index lost more than half of its peak value. The index wouldn't notch a new high until 2017. Massive amounts of venture capital were dumped into tech and internet startups, while investors purchased shares in these companies hoping for success. The crash wiped out $5 trillion U.S. in technology-firm market value between March and October 2002.

• One year and three months: The total length of time that the bear market of 2007 to 2009 lasted. The S&P 500 lost 51.9% of its value.

• 2008 Recession Timeline: On Sept. 29, 2008, the stock market fell 777.68 points in intraday trading. It was at the time the biggest point drop in history. The immediate cause of the market crash was Congress' initial refusal to pass the bank bailout bill that would stabilize the American financial system after a series of historic shocks. The shocks to the system up to that point had included: - July 11, 2008: Subprime mortgage lender IndyMac collapses, signaling the start of a wave of mortgage defaults by homebuyers. - Sept. 7, 2008: The government seizes control of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which guaranteed millions of bad loans. - Sept. 15, 2008: Lehman Brothers goes bankrupt under the weight of $619 billion in debt, much of it due to investments in subprime mortgages. - Sept. 16, 2008: The government bails out insurance company AIG by buying 80% of it. It does not bail out Lehman Brothers. On March 5, 2009, the Dow Jones closed at 6,926, a drop of more than 50% from its pre-recession high.

• 2010 Flash Crash: On May 6, 2010, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq 100, and the Russell 2000 collapsed and rebounded within a 36-minute timespan. Approximately $1 trillion in market capitalization was wiped out on the DJIA, though it recovered 70% of its decline by the end of the trading day. In a joint study released by the CFTC and SEC in September 2010, they concluded that the flash crash was the result of a convergence of several factors, primarily a large volume of E-mini S&P 500 futures trading, illegal manipulative trading of many E-minis, and electronic liquidity providers pulling back on quotes once stocks began to plummet.

• August 2011: On Aug. 8, 2011, the U.S. and global stock markets fell as a weakening U.S. economy and a widening debt crisis in Europe dampened investor confidence. Before this event, the U.S. received a credit downgrade from Standard & Poor's (S&P) for the first time in history amid an earlier debt ceiling impasse. Although the political gridlock was ultimately resolved, S&P saw the agreement as falling short of what was needed to repair the nation's finances.

• 2015 to 2016 Stock Market Selloff: The 2015 to 2016 stock market selloff was a series of global sell-offs that took place over a one-year time frame beginning in June 2015. In the U.S., the DJIA fell 530.94, or approximately 3.1%, on Aug. 21, 2015. The market volatility initially began in China as investors were sold shares globally amid a slew of tumultuous economic circumstances, including the end of quantitative easing in the U.S., a fall in petroleum prices, the Greek debt default, and the Brexit vote.

• 2020 Coronavirus Crash: The 2020 coronavirus stock market crash is the most recent U.S. crash, which occurred due to panic selling following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 16, the drop in stock prices was so sudden and dramatic that multiple trading halts were triggered in a single day. From Feb. 12 to March 23, the DJIA lost 37% of its value, and NYSE trading was suspended several times. The stock market rebounded, and on Aug. 18, the S&P 500 was hitting record highs. On Nov. 24, 2020, the DJIA crossed 30,000 for the first time in history.

Notable Downturns Here is a list of other notable crashes that affected the U.S. but are considered global events:

• Crisis of 1772: From 1770 to 1772, colonial planters were forced to borrow cheap capital en masse from British creditors. The resulting credit boom turned into a credit crisis when planters couldn't repay their debt, causing numerous bankruptcies in London.

• Panic of 1796 to 1797: This crisis began after a U.S. land speculation bubble burst in 1796. On Feb. 25, 1797, the Bank of England suspended specie payments as part of the Bank Restriction Act of 1797. The Panic of 1796 to 1797 led to the collapse of multiple prominent merchant firms in several major American cities as well as the imprisonment of many American debtors.

• Panic of 1873: Following a stock market crash in Europe, investors sold their investments in American railroads. When the U.S. bank Jay Cooke & Company went bankrupt, a bank run commenced. At least 100 banks collapsed, and the NYSE was forced to suspend trading for the first time on Sept. 20, 1873.

• Economic Effects of the September 11 Attacks: The terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, occurred as the world economy was already experiencing its first synchronized global recession in a quarter-century. Stock market values in the U.K., Germany, France, Canada, and Japan generally move in tandem with those in the U.S. and they fell hard in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

• Stock Market Downturn of 2002: Beginning in March of 2002, a downturn in stock prices was observed across the U.S., Canada, Asia, and, Europe. After recovering from the economic impact of the Sept. 11 attacks, indices started steadily sliding downward, leading to dramatic declines in July and September, with the latter month experiencing values below those reached in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

• 2018 Cryptocurrency Crash: During the 2018 cryptocurrency crash, also known as the Bitcoin Crash or the Great Crypto Crash, most cryptocurrencies were sold and lost significant value, with Bitcoin dropping by 15%. The value of Bitcoin ultimately fell by approximately 65% from January 2018 to February 2018 and would not fully recover from this event until 2020.

In summary, the history of stock market crashes in the United States is a testament to the fragility and complexity of financial markets. These events have often been triggered by a combination of economic, political, and psychological factors, leading to significant consequences for investors and the broader economy. While financial regulators have introduced measures to mitigate the impact of crashes, such as circuit breakers and improved market oversight, the potential for future market turbulence remains a constant concern for investors and policymakers alike. Understanding the lessons from these historical events is crucial for anyone navigating the world of investing

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