Which U.S. stock index fell nearly 90% from its 1929 peak to its 1932 low during the Great Depression crash?

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 90% from its 1929 peak to its 1932 low during the Great Depression crash.

The Dow reached a pre-crash peak of 381.17 on September 3, 1929. It eventually bottomed at 41.22 on July 8, 1932, a decline of roughly 89%. The fall erased years of gains and became one of the most dramatic collapses in the history of a major U.S. stock index.

The Dow tracks a relatively small group of large U.S. companies and is price-weighted rather than weighted by total market value. That makes it different from broader indexes such as the S&P 500, which was introduced later in its modern form.

The market’s 1932 low was not the end of the Great Depression. Economic hardship continued, and the Dow did not recover its 1929 closing high until 1954. The long recovery illustrates why a market crash and an economic depression are related but distinct events.