Wall Street Crash of 1929
The collapse of the US equity market in October 1929, which opened a decade of depression.
How to read the number
Credit was the fuel: shares were bought with a small deposit, and a falling price forced brokers to close client positions, adding selling to the decline.
When the metric lies
The crash did not create the depression. Bank failures, a contracting money supply and trade barriers that followed did.
Also known as: crash of 1929