Chapter 404 Stock Market Crash
October 87, 10, 19:9 a.m. Eastern Time.
The atmosphere inside the New York Stock Exchange was somewhat depressing, with many people staring at the computers in front of them with serious expressions.
The stock market has been rising so fast this year that everyone in North America knows that you can make money in the stock market. And you can make money even if you buy with your eyes closed.
Since Reagan came to power in 82, the tax reform and economic easing policies were introduced. With the support of North American financial groups, the oil crisis and stagflation that had plagued North America for a decade were finally fundamentally reversed.
The economy began to improve, the unemployment rate dropped significantly, economic growth began to pick up, and people regained confidence in their spending power.
The stock market is the most intuitive feedback.
The stock market value has grown from 80 trillion in 2.5 to more than trillion.
Especially after 87, the average daily trading volume reached nearly million shares.
The prosperity brought by the stock market far exceeds the actual economic growth rate and value, and it also attracts a huge amount of international hot money to join this feast.
Later, the North American economy began to shift from real to virtual, and it was also from here that it began.
At 9:, as a quick and dull opening bell rang in the trading hall, hundreds of computer screens in the hall began to light up with red or green numbers and curves.
"how is it going?"
A trader leaned over and asked another staff member.
"It's terrible. The Dow Jones Industrial Average keeps falling."
The staff members didn't look too happy.
"My sell orders keep growing, but no one is taking over. I have a bad feeling."
The trader frowned as he looked at the computer in front of him. The notebook in his hand was filled with sell orders.
“Who says it’s not? It’s the same here.
Do you think it will be like last Black Friday?"
The staff's fingers were tapping on the keyboard like butterflies, entering one sell order after another.
"Isn't that possible? After all, the stock market is only experiencing a temporary correction.
Maybe it’s the big dealers who are shaking the market to suppress retail investors and prices, and then buy in?”
The trader shook his head and began to enter sell orders according to the data in the notebook.
“It’s a terrible day today, all selling.
Come on guys, you gotta step up."
A distributor was holding a thick stack of sell orders in his hands and distributing them to the traders as he walked.
"I haven't finished typing yet, is there anything else?"
The staff member took over two full sales orders and muttered something.
"Stop whining and get to work."
The trader casually placed the sell order on the desk and continued with his operations.
"Too bad, the stock market has been a little abnormal in the past half month."
On the second floor of the trading hall, a fat man with a cigar in his mouth frowned as he looked at the huge screen made up of multiple TVs hanging in the hall.
Obviously, there is much more red than green.
“Is it possible that some international hot money is doing a wash trade?”
A man next to him, holding a whiskey in his hand, was also staring at the huge picture.
"It's hard to say, what news did you receive?"
The fat man was well-dressed and his hair was combed shiny and sleek. It was obvious that both of them were rich people.
The room they were in was the VIP room in the New York Stock Exchange, where they could observe stock market fluctuations at the first moment.
“No, but normally this wouldn’t happen.
Did the typhoon in London last Friday affect business and affect us?"
The rich man next to him took a sip of whiskey, looking thoughtful.
"Damn John Bull, they always screw up everything!"
The fat man blew out a smoke ring indignantly.
"Should we clear out all of them? I think the taste is a little off."
The rich man hesitated and made a suggestion.
"I think it's okay. Let's stay out of the spotlight for now and see how things go.
But we have too much goods on hand, and I’m afraid we won’t be able to sell them all in a short time.”
The fat man pondered for a moment, then turned his head to look at the rich man and the huge TV hanging in the trading hall.
After hesitating for a moment, he nodded.
“We’ll sell as much as we can. Who knows, the market might rebound in the afternoon, so we can just switch goods.
I tell you, last week I saw that industrial stocks fell the most, but financial, medical and arms stocks were relatively strong. "
The rich man raised his eyebrows, turned around and waved to the assistant at the door.
"Okay, listen to you!"
The fat man also turned around and saw that the rich man had already started explaining things to his assistant.
I hardened my heart and joined in.
This scene began to spread from this box to other boxes.
While the distributors in the trading hall were busy filling out and distributing orders again, people in the various boxes began to make phone calls outside.
Those who were still staring at the huge TV, thinking that it was just a temporary fluctuation, gradually began to notice that the atmosphere of the entire stock market was somewhat different.
They also picked up the phone at hand.
In the distribution area in the hall, the distributors were either walking around busily distributing documents, or holding a microphone in one hand and nodding continuously while holding a pen in the other hand hurriedly filling out sales orders.
In an instant, the busier the entire hall became, the more busy it became.
As the operators operated, there was more red on the giant TV than when the market first opened.
The green on the entire screen went from occupying a quarter of the page to being scattered here and there, and then to actually being nowhere to be found.
This situation immediately caused panic, and the phones in the trading hall kept ringing.
The traders were simply overwhelmed, and the sell orders were piling up into a thick pile at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The computer interface also began to become stuck, including the real-time data changes on the huge TV, which began to twitch and flash for a long time.
"Oops, the system is stuck..."
A trader folded his arms, stared at the motionless computer screen in front of him, and shouted.
"Damn it, my system isn't working either!"
Another trader shouted back.
"The computer is so slow, what happened?"
Coincidentally, such voices gradually spread in the trading hall, and traders stood up one by one and looked around blankly.
“Administrator! Where’s the administrator?!
Let's take a quick look at what's going on with the system."
Finally, someone remembered the administrator.
“The volume of transactions is too high for the system to handle and there have been delays.
Each operation was delayed for more than fifteen minutes, and if the order entry process had not stopped, the delay would have been even longer.”
The system administrator raised his head with sweat on his forehead and responded.
In an instant, someone thought of something, picked up the phone next to him again, covered his mouth, and started to deliver the message.
When one person starts doing it, there will be a second, a third, and so on until everyone starts doing it.
Finally, the huge screen was filled with red, and no green information could be found.
"It's over... It's going to collapse..."
In the VIP box, the cigar ash in the fat man's hand fell on his body, but he didn't react at all.
He stared blankly at the huge TV hanging above the trading hall.
He murmured in his mouth.
"No, it's not about to collapse, it's already collapsed..."
The rich man next to him, like the fat man, stared at the huge TV.
The expression on her face was no different from crying.
