A First-Class Catastrophe: The Road to Black Monday, the Worst Day in Wall Street History

A history of the 1987 market crash known as Black Monday, when the Dow fell 22.6 percent on October 19—nearly twice as severe as the worst day of 1929. The crash resulted from more than seven years of buildup and threatened nearly every US financial institution. Drawing on archival research and original interviews, the book traces events from the silver crisis of 1980 through regulatory turf battles in Washington, rivalry between the New York Stock Exchange and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and the unintended consequences of a risk-reduction strategy developed by two California professors. The narrative follows attempts by various players to prevent the meltdown and describes unexpected interventions that averted total disaster. The book examines how investors, regulators, and bankers failed to apply lessons from 1987, with similar patterns recurring in the 2008 financial crisis. It offers perspective on both historical events and implications for financial markets going forward.