Hong Kong’s stock exchange suffered the October 1987 crash one day before Wall Street’s Black Monday.
The Hong Kong market began the global chain of selling on October 19, 1987, local time, which was October 18 in much of the United States. Trading was suspended for several days after the Hang Seng Index plunged, and the crisis then spread through European markets before reaching the United States on October 19.
This sequence reflects the time-zone structure of global finance: markets in Asia open before Europe and North America. Panic, portfolio rebalancing, and concerns about overvalued shares could therefore move from one financial center to the next.
Hong Kong is sometimes omitted from summaries that begin with Wall Street’s Black Monday. However, the 1987 crash was international from the outset. The Hang Seng’s collapse helped demonstrate how closely connected major stock exchanges had become, while later reforms focused on trading halts and circuit breakers.