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

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Description

The definitive account of the crash of 1987, a cautionary tale of how the U.S. financial system nearly collapsed–from the bestselling writer of The Wizard of Lies

Monday, October 19, 1987, used to be by far the worst day in Wall Street history. The market fell 22.6 percent – almost twice as bad as the worst day of 1929 – equal to a one-day lack of nearly 5,000 points nowadays.

Black Monday used to be more than seven years in the making and threatened nearly each U.S. financial institution. Drawing on superlative archival research and dozens of original interviews Diana B. Henriques weaves a tale of missed opportunities, market delusions, and destructive actions that stretched from the “silver crisis” of 1980 to turf battles in Washington, a poisonous rivalry between the New York Stock Exchange and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and the almost-fatal success of two California professors whose idea for reducing market risk spun terribly out of regulate. As the story hurtles forward, the players struggle to forestall a looming market meltdown and unexpected heroes step in to avert total disaster.

For thirty years, investors, regulators, and bankers have failed to heed the lessons of 1987, whilst the similar patterns have resurfaced, most spectacularly in the financial crisis of 2008. A First-Class Catastrophe offers a new way of taking a look not only on the past, but at our financial future as well.

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