The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its lowest close of the Great Crash era on July 8, 1932.
The Dow closed at 41.22 on that date, roughly 89 percent below its peak close of 381.17 on September 3, 1929. The market’s decline therefore continued for years after the dramatic trading days commonly associated with the 1929 Wall Street Crash.
The crash helped deepen the economic contraction that became the Great Depression, although historians do not treat the stock-market collapse as its only cause. Bank failures, falling demand, debt burdens, monetary policy, and international economic problems all contributed to the broader crisis.
July 8, 1932, is sometimes mistaken for the bottom of the 1929 crash itself. The famous October 1929 sessions began the collapse, but the Dow’s eventual low came nearly three years later. The index did not regain its 1929 high until 1954.