Market Mayhem

There have been plenty of big selloffs in the stock market over the last month, but early on Friday Oct. 24, many market watchers thought it would bring the big one that would join other infamous days. For history's sake, however, the days since Lehman Brothers' chapter 11 have been momentous and notable enough. Here's a look at some very bad days and periods for stocks that got investors' attention over the past 80 years.

The stock market crash of 1929 saw the market fall 12.8 percent on Oct. 28, 1929, known as “Black Monday," but the market fell almost as sharply the day after. The crash contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s and many also consider it part of a two-decade bear market. 

During this period of the Nixon-Ford presidency, when inflation was a major concern because of the first oil spike, the Dow went from its Jan. 11, 1973  high of 1051.70 to a low of 577.60 on Dec. 6 1974, a 45.1 percent decline.

Known as Black Monday, or "The Crash," the Dow fell 507.99 points, or 22.61 percent, as part of a broad global selloff.

The failure of a leveraged buyout of airline holding company UAL triggered what was then known as the "Mini Crash." The Dow fell 190.58 points, a 6.91 percent decline. 

The financial crisis in Asia, primarily in South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand, had its largest impact on the US markets on Oct. 27, 1997 when the Dow dropped 554.26 points, 7.18 percent, forcing an early closing of the NYSE.

The tech sector was hit  hard as the dot-com bubble burst.  The Nasdaq peaked at 5048.62 on Mar. 10, 2000 before beginning a brutal two-month slide. By May 23, 2000, it was down 37.32  percent.

The Dow dropped 684.81 points (7.12 percent) on Sept. 17, 2001, the Monday the New York Stock Exchange resumed trading for the first time after the 9/11 attacks.