"Black Monday" and the Long Bull Market On Monday, October 19, 1987, the value of stocks plummeted on markets around the world. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 22 percent to close at 1738.42, the largest one-day decline since 1914, eclipsing even the famous October 1929 market crash.

The Brady Commission (a presidential commission set up to investigate the fall) the SEC, and others blamed various factors for the 1987 debacle -- including a negative turn in investor psychology, investors' concerns about the federal government budget deficit and foreign trade deficit, a failure of specialists on the New York Stock Exchange to discharge their duty as buyers of last resort, and "program trading" in which computers are programmed to launch buying or selling of large volumes of stock when certain market triggers occur. The stock exchange subsequently initiated safeguards. It said it would restrict program trading whenever the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose or fell 50 points in a 65