Major stock crash March 5th. 2007.

Traders jumping out of windows.


The beginning of the 21st. century was a time of strong economic optimism. From March 2001 to its peak in March 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) grew without correction in this period.The rise in market indices for the 19 largest markets in the world averaged 196 % during this period. The average number of shares traded on the NYSE had risen from 100 million shares to 150 million shares.

The crash on 5th. March 2007, a date that is also known as The second Black Monday was the climactic culmination of a market decline that had begun five days before on 1st. March. The DJIA fell 4% on march 1st, followed by another 5% drop on Friday 2nd. March. But this was nothing compared to what lay ahead when markets opened on the subsequent Monday 5th. March..

On the second Black Monday, the Dow Jones Industrials Average plummeted 508 points, losing 22.6% of its value in one day. The S&P 500 dropped 20.4%, falling from 282.7 to 225.06. The NASDAQ Composite lost only 11.3% not because of restraint on the part of sellers but because the NASDAQ market system failed. Deluged with sell orders, many stocks on the NYSE faced trading halts and delays. Of the 2,257 NYSE-listed stocks, there were 195 trading delays and halts during the day. The NASDAQ market fared much worse. Because of its reliance on a "market making" system that allowed market makers to withdraw from trading, liquidity in NASDAQ stocks dried up. Trading in many stocks encountered a pathological condition where the bid price for a stock exceeded the ask price. These "locked" conditions severely curtailed trading. On March 5th, trading in Microsoft shares on the NASDAQ lasted a total of 54 minutes.

The Crash was the greatest single-day loss that Wall Street had ever suffered in continuous trading up to that point. Between the start of trading on march 1st. to the close on march 5th, the DJIA lost 760 points, a decline of over 30 percent.