Black+Tuesday

= = =__Black Tuesday__= toc Black Tuesday is the day that many people refer too as one of the first steps towards the Great Depression. Black Tuesday (October 29, 1929) was when the worst US stock market crash happened. In the beginning of October a stock for General Electric started at $315, then on Black Thursday (which is similar to Black Tuesday, but not as bad; October 24, 1929) it dropped to $283 in one day. Then about a week later on Black Tuesday it dropped down to $168 (which is about half of what it was on October 23rd, just a week before).

Black Thursday
Black Thursday (October 24, 1929) was when the steep decline of the stock market started. On the 24th investors all began selling their stock but no one wanted to buy any. Because of this, there were too many sellers and not enough buyers (this led stocks to lose value quickly) People didn't want to buy any because the prices of the stocks had started to fall.

The United States Stock Market
The main cause of the Black Tuesday Stock Market Crash, was that the people didn't look after the Stock Market as closley as we do today. During the 1920s people purchased a lot of their stock of credits (also known as margin buying). They didn't think that that would cause a problem for the economy so they didn't regulate the purchase and sales of stocks as much as they should have. Since they didn't regulate the purchases and sales, the stocks started to decrease in value. On Black Thursday over 13 million people put their stocks up for sale. On Black Tuesday it got worse, over 16 million stocks went up for sale. The problem with this was that nobody was buying them. The result from all the new stocks up for sale, was the collapse of the Stock Market.

Black Monday
Another cause of the Stock Market Crash was Black Monday (October 28, 1929). In the days leading up to Black Tuesday the Stock Market was a mess. There was lots of panic because of Black Thursday (when prices started to drop immensely) and then the bounce back the following day. People thought that over the weekend the Stock Market would go back to normal but it only got worse. The day before Black Tuesday (Black Monday) lots of trading started again. About 9 million stocks were traded that day and the confidence of the market declined once again. At the end of the day the stocks went down another 13%. Lots of people felt that Black Monday was a sign that greater losses were going to occur but nobody thought it would be as severe as what happened the next day.

The Start of the Great Depression
After Black Tuesday the Stock Market didn't recover until about 22 years after the summer of 1932. Since it took so long for the Stock Market to recover, America went into a depression that was later reffered to as the Great Depression. So many americans lost their jobs and homes during the Depression because of the Crash. Some people think that WWII was a great help to the end of the Depression. Since the end of the Depression, America has never seen such a great drop in Stock Market prices, and hopefully will never have to.

The Recovery of the Stock Market
After the Crash of 1929 things only got worse for the Stock Market. The prices continued to decline until the summer of 1932, when the stocks hit their all time low. At that point, some stocks had decreased almost 90%. The good thing is that things slowly started to go back, but unfortunately it took a very long time. Some of the stocks didn't even go up to their normal prices until after 22 years. Many say that WWII was what really helped the recovery of the economy because of all the new jobs that had to be done. All sorts of military supplies had to be made, and the government hired millions of jobless people to do it. This stimulated the economy and thus began the slow recovery of America.