Black Thursday was the name given to October 24, 1929, the first major panic-selling day of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The New York Stock Exchange experienced exceptionally heavy trading and a sharp fall in prices.
A group of prominent bankers met at J. P. Morgan & Co. and attempted to restore confidence by buying selected stocks at prices above the market. The intervention temporarily steadied trading, but it did not remove the underlying weakness in highly speculative markets.
The crash continued the following week. Black Monday occurred on October 28, and Black Tuesday followed on October 29, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 12%. The market then entered a prolonged decline.
Black Thursday is often treated as the opening day of the crash, although stock prices had already weakened after reaching a peak in September. The wider economic consequences became severe during the Great Depression, but the crash itself was a financial-market event.