Black Thursday, October 24, 1929, was associated with record trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange before Black Tuesday.
Approximately 12.9 million shares changed hands on Black Thursday, then the highest volume ever recorded on the exchange. Prices plunged in the morning, but a group of major bankers helped support leading stocks and the market recovered much of the day’s loss by the close.
The apparent stabilization did not end the crisis. Selling returned on Black Monday and intensified on Black Tuesday, when about 16 million shares traded. The sequence destroyed confidence in the idea that the market could quickly recover and helped expose how heavily investors had relied on borrowed money.
Black Thursday is sometimes confused with Black Tuesday because both were major days in the same crash. Thursday came first and briefly appeared less disastrous after bankers intervened; the later panic proved that the underlying weakness remained.