Survivors tell their stories of the 1987 crash

Last week's 6 per cent tumble in Wall Street shares recalled memories of the global stock market crash almost exactly 12 years ago - an event that still haunts trading veterans who survived October 1987.

While last week's fall in US shares pales in comparison to the double digit percentage point drop back then, the mood of the market is uncomfortably similar.

Oil prices are rising, the dollar is falling and the US current account deficit continues to climb - just like in 1987.

For some, the 1987 crash seems just like yesterday. Chairman of private equity firm Pantheon, Mr Rhoddy Swire, recalls the 1987 crash: "We were on the telephone to our San Francisco office and there was bedlam. No-one could talk, no-one could do anything. There was a line of 50,000 IBM shares at any price and no prices forthcoming," he said.

The Dow Jones industrial average peaked in late August 1987 at 2,722. But during the following month, it was rocked back and forth before slumping 90 points on October 6th.

The US stock market slid more than 11 per cent between October 5th and October 14th, prompted by tumbling US bond prices after bad trade figures. Two days later, the Dow fell a record 108 points amid a huge volume of sell orders.

On the same day, Britain's asset markets had been shut down by a freak hurricane which uprooted trees, left thousands of homes damaged and many roads blocked, preventing most market traders and investors from getting to their desks.

"London was basically shut down and it was very eerie because no phones were ringing," said Mr Elli Gifford, who was working in investment research at the time.

On the following Monday, now known as Black Monday, Hong Kong stocks fell 11 per cent, then London shares fell 250 points as investors dumped holdings across the board.

Later that day, US stocks fell 22.6 per cent, prompting the headline in the New York Daily News: "Wall Street Goes Mad!".

The crash was particularly painful in Britain where a raft of government privatisations had meant share-ownership had spread out to include many first-time buyers whose experience was limited to rising markets. Considerable personal and institutional wealth, often supplemented by borrowed funds, was holed in a single day.

There was still further to go with Tokyo losing a fifth of its stock market value the following day, Hong Kong shutting up shop and London giving up another 250 points, taking its losses to 20 per cent in two days.

Just as concerns rose that global equity markets were sliding toward freefall, the brakes were put on in early afternoon trading in New York. By mid-afternoon, the market had turned, closing above 2,000 after plunging to around 1,600 earlier in the day.

Within a few months, the pain of October 1987 was beginning to fade as indices recovered and 10 years later, the Dow Jones industrials average is worth four times its level then.

But for many investors it was a terrible lesson.