 Wall Street History
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The name of the street derives from the fact that during the 17th Century, Wall Street formed the northern boundary of the New Amsterdam settlement. in the 1640's basic picket and plank fences denoted plots and residences in the colony. Later, on behalf of the Dutch West India Company, Peter Stuyvesant, in part using African slaves, led the Dutch in the construction of a stronger stockade. A strengthened 12-foot (4m) wall of timber and earth was created by 1653 fortified by palisades. The wall was created, and strengthened over time, as a defence against attack from various Native American tribes, New England colonists, and the British. In 1685 surveyors laid out Wall Street along the lines of the original stockade. the wall was dismantled by the British in 1699. And while the original name referred to Walloons, the French speaking Belgians that helped populate this settlement in the beginning, the name was now easily taken to refer to the wall that once was here.
in the late 18th century, there was buttonwood tree at the foot of Wall Street under which traders and speculators would gather to trade informally. In 1792, the traders formalized their association with the Buttonwood Agreement. This was the origin of the New York Stock Exchange.
In 1789, Federal Hall and Wall Street was the scene of the United States' first Presidential inauguration. George Washington took the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall overlooking Wall Street on April 30, 1789. This was also the location of the passing of the Bill Of Rights. In 1889, the original stock report, Customers' Afternoon Letter, became the Wall Street Journal, named in reference to the actual street. it is now an influential international daily business newspaper published in New York City. For many years, it had the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, although it is currently second to USA Today. It has been owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. since 2007.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the '29 Crash, the Crash of 1929, the Great Crash of 1929, the Great Crash of October 1929 the Great Wall Street Crash of 1929, 1929 Great Crash, or the Great Crash, was the most devastating stock mrket crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and longevity of its fallout.
Three phrases - Black Thursday, Black Monday, and Black Tuesday - are used to describe this collapse of stock values. All three are appropriate, for the crash was not a one-day affair. The initial crash occurred on Black Thursday (October 24, 1929), but it was the catastrophic downturn of Black Monday and Tuesday (October 28 and October 29, 1929) that precipitated widespread panic and the onset of unprecedented and long-lasting consequences for the United States. The collapse continued for a month.Economists and historians disagree as to what role the crash played in subsequent economic, social, and political events. The Economist writes, "Briefly, the Depression did not start with the stockmarket [sic] crash." In 1929, The Economist wrote "Can a very serious Stock Exchange collapse produce a serious setback to industry when industrial production is for the most part in a healthy and balanced condition?"
The crash in America came near the beginning of the Great Depression, a period of economic decline in the industrialized nations, and led to the institution of landmark financial reforms and new trading regulations.
At the time of the crash, New York City had grown to be a major metropolis, and its Wall Street district was one of the world's leading financial centers. The New York Stock Exchange was the largest stock market in the worldn the world.
The Roaring Twenties, which was a precursor to the Crash, was a time of prosperity and excess in the city, and despite warnings against speculation, many believed that the market could sustain high price levels. Shortly before the crash, Irving Fisher famously proclaimed, "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." The euphoria and financial gains of the great bull market were shattered on Black Thursday, when share prices on the NYSE collapsed. Stock prices fell on that day and they continued to fall, at an unprecedented rate, for a full month.
In the days leading up to Black Tuesday, the market was severely unstable. Periods of selling and high volumes of trading were interspersed with brief periods of rising prices and recovery. Economist and author Jude Wanniski later correlated these swings with the prospects for passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which was then being debated in Congress. After the crash, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) recovered early in 1930, only to reverse again, reaching a new low point of the great bear market in 1932. The Dow did not return to pre-1929 levels until late 1954, and was lower at its July 8, 1932 level than it had been since the 1800s.
Black Monday 1987 :
In financial markets, Black Monday refers to Monday, October 19, 1987, when stock markets around the world crashed, shedding a huge value in a very short period. The crash began in Hong Kong, spread west through international time zones to Europe, hitting the United States after other markets had already declined by a significant margin. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped by 508 points to 1739 (22.6%). By the end of October, stock markets in Hong Kong had fallen 45.8%, Australia 41.8%, Spain 31%, the United Kingdom 26.4%, the United States 22.68%, and Canada 22.5%. New Zealand's market was hit especially hard, falling about 60% from its 1987 peak, and taking several years to recover. (In Australia and New Zealand the 1987 crash is also referred to as Black Tuesday because of the timezone difference).
The Black Monday decline was the largest one-day percentage decline stock market history. Other large declines have occurred after periods of market closure, such as on Monday, September 17, 2001, the first day that the market was open following the September 11, 2001 attacks.
(Saturday, December 12, 1914, is sometimes erroneously cited as the largest one-day percentage decline of the DJIA. In reality, the ostensible decline of 24.39% was created retroactively by a redefinition of the DJIA in 1916)
Interestingly, the DJIA was positive for the 1987 calendar year. It opened on January 2, 1987, at 1,897 points and would close on December 31, 1987, at 1,939 points. The DJIA would not regain its August 25, 1987 closing high of 2,722 points until almost two years later.
A degree of mystery is associated with the 1987 crash, and it has been labeled as a Black Swan event. Important assumptions concerning human rationality, the efficient market hypothesis, and economic equilibrium were brought into question by the event. Debate as to the cause of the crash still continues many years after the event, with no firm conclusions reached.
In the wake of the crash, markets around the world were put on restricted trading primarily because sorting out the orders that had come in was beyond the computer technology of the time. This also gave the Federal Reserve and other central banks time to pump liquidity into the system to prevent a further downdraft. While pessimism reigned, the DJIA bottomed on October 20.
Following the stock market crash, a group of 33 eminent economists from various nations met in Washington, D.C. in December 1987, and collectively predicted that “the next few years could be the most troubled since the 1930's.
History Repeats Itself (2008)
Like night follows day, stock markets and other financial markets will inevitably fail or crash from time to time. So it should have come as no surprise that we had another in 2008. How long the credit crisis will continue and how deep the worldwide recession will go is anyones guess. History is being re-written.........
Signs of Recovery in 2009 ........
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Wall Street Information - History, Crashes etc
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