Which 1989 crash caused the Dow Jones Industrial Average to fall 6.9% in a single session?

The 1989 crash in which the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 6.9 percent in one session was the Friday the 13th mini-crash.

The episode occurred on Friday, October 13, 1989. The Dow dropped 190.58 points, then a record point decline, after a highly leveraged proposal to buy UAL Corporation collapsed. Investors had already been concerned about high valuations, interest rates, and the market’s rapid rise.

The decline was severe but brief compared with the 1987 Black Monday crash. Trading systems and financial institutions absorbed the shock without a prolonged collapse in the wider U.S. economy. The event demonstrated that markets could suffer abrupt losses even after new safeguards had been introduced.

It is sometimes confused with Friday the 13th events in other markets or with Black Monday. Black Monday was the worldwide crash of October 19, 1987; the 1989 mini-crash was a separate U.S. market shock linked especially to the failed UAL deal.