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1987 Crash Revisited

Today is the anniversary of the great 1987 crash. We last looked at this a few years ago, via my friend Rob Fraim.

Today, on the 19th anniversary of the 1987 stock market crash, he put out his recollections from that day.

I found them so interesting that I suggested Rob (who is blogless) post them here. He gladly agreed. Without further adieu, here is Rob's version of 1987 Crash Revisited

October 19 – the day that each year gives old-timers in this business a renewed facial tic and post-trauma flashbacks.

“What?” you say.  “You mean you were actually there, Grandpa?  You remember the Crash of ’87?”

Yes, I was, and yes I do. Confirming rumors that I am, in fact, older than dirt I note that I was in this business in 1987 – and had been for a few years prior (I started in 1983.)

I was having dinner last week with a friend who runs a hedge fund (another graybeard, although he looks younger than me) and we ended up talking about 1987. He had a great story about the whole thing (which I’ll let him tell you about someday if you ever get to have dinner with him.)

The story continues here . . .

Thursday, October 19, 2006 | 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBack (1)
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Comments

I remember sitting at my desk (Lehman Brothers, San Francsico) looking at my Quotron (along with an entire office of brokers) watching with horror as what seemed an hourly loss of 100 Dow points. We were quite frozen with fear and wonderment.

Stocks like Coke, Gillette, Disney etc. ripped to shreds. All the big and best names. The end of free markets? Certainly the end of the stock market as we had known it. Was a 1929 comparison accurate? Did it even have a place.

And, I heard the rumor in the office of either a client or broker who had a ton of S&P puts, way out of the money at the time he had purchased the, that had suddenly made him a fortune.

A floor broker on the PSE took a picture of his monitor on the close and gave it to me buddy 10 years later on his 40th birthday.

What may have been forgotten was that the DOW had it's two biggest days ever, to that point, the following two days after the 507 point crash.............

Posted by: Larry Nusbaum | Oct 19, 2006 3:28:20 PM