Black Tuesday, the most famous single-day collapse of the 1929 U.S. stock-market crash, occurred on October 29, 1929.
On that day, investors traded roughly 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange, a record at the time. Prices fell sharply amid panic selling, after earlier declines on Black Thursday and Black Monday had already damaged confidence. The crash did not happen in isolation: speculation, buying stocks on margin, weakening economic conditions, and excessive optimism had helped push prices to unsustainable levels.
The crash is often treated as the beginning of the Great Depression, but the relationship was complex. The market collapse worsened business confidence and reduced wealth, while bank failures, falling demand, monetary policy, and international economic problems deepened the depression. Black Thursday, October 24, is sometimes mistakenly called the crash’s main date, but Black Tuesday marked the climactic selling wave. The Dow Jones Industrial Average eventually lost nearly 90% from its 1929 peak to its 1932 low.