The Daily Feather — White Wednesday

Black Monday and Tuesday hog all the limelight. Toda Noy’s date in 1929 was much friendlier. It should have been dubbed “White Wednesday.” Imagine the S&P 500 closing today, October 30th, at 4,625 after staging a 12.34% one-day rally. That was what the Halloween Day headlines proclaimed after stocks fell by 12.83% and -11.73% in back-to-back drubbings on Monday and Tuesday of that week in 1929. The New York Times announced: “STOCKS MOUNT IN STRONG ALL-DAY RALLY; ROCKEFELLER BUYING HEARTENS MARKET; 2-DAY CLOSING ORDERED TO EASE STRAIN.” Alas, the good times lasted but one trading day. Through November 13, 1929, stocks fell another 23.16%. After quite the bear market rally, stocks then slid in sick fashion through July 8, 1932, culminating in a nearly 90% loss over three years. Exactly 25 years would pass through November 23, 1954, before stocks regained their September 3, 1929, prior peak.

There isn’t a soul on Wall Street who envisions such a fate for the stock market, QI included. The parallel date on the calendar that does intrigue us the most is November 14, 1929, the day the bear market rally that fall commenced. It reminds us of November 14, 2018, the day the high-yield market went into the deep freeze following Moody’s downgrade of General Electric’s debt. While the ‘BOO-geyman’ on Wall Street tomorrow night is a meltdown in the stock market, we must be mindful that Mike Milken wasn’t even born until 1946, 17 years after Black Monday.