Howard Pyle, The Burning of Jamestown, an early-twentieth-century illustration, not an eyewitness view. Public domain.
On October 19, 1987, the stock market fell about 22 percent in one day.
If money is tight, you may not own shares, and you still meet the fear if your employer does.
If you are in the middle, a retirement account can shrink on a Monday and not explain itself.
If you have savings, a one-day crash is a liquidity event first and a verdict on the economy second.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost about 22 percent on October 19, 1987.
Program trading and portfolio insurance made the fall feed on itself.
The next morning the Federal Reserve, under its new chair Alan Greenspan, said it would supply liquidity, and the crash did not become a depression.
Source: New York Stock Exchange record of October 19, 1987; Federal Reserve statement of October 20, 1987.