This is a list of stock market crashes and bear markets. The difference between the two relies on speed (how fast declines occur) and length (how long they last). Stock market crashes are quick and brief, while bear markets are slow and prolonged. Those two do not always happen within the same decline.
| Name | Date | Country | Causes | Ref | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tulip mania Bubble | A bubble (1633–37) in the Dutch Republic during which contracts for bulbs of tulips reached extraordinarily high prices, and suddenly collapsed. | [1] | ||||
| The Mississippi Bubble | Banque Royale by John Law stopped payments of its note in exchange for specie and as result caused economic collapse in France. | |||||
| South Sea Bubble of 1720 | Affected early European stock markets, during early days of chartered joint stock companies. | |||||
| Bengal Bubble of 1769 | Primarily caused by the British East India Company, whose shares fell from £276 in December 1768 to £122 in 1784. | |||||
| Crisis of 1772 |  United States | |||||
| Financial Crisis of 1791–92 | United States | Shares of First bank of US boom and bust in Aug and Sept 1791. Groundwork of Alexander Hamilton's cooperation with the Bank of New York to end this event would be crucial in ending the Panic of 1792 next year. | ||||
| Panic of 1796–1797 | United States | A series of downturns in Atlantic credit markets led to broader commercial downturns in Great Britain and the United States. | ||||
| Panic of 1819 | United States | |||||
| Panic of 1825 | ||||||
| Panic of 1837 | United States | |||||
| Panic of 1847 | ||||||
| Panic of 1857 | United States | |||||
| Panic of 1866 | ||||||
| Black Friday | United States | |||||
| Panic of 1873 | Initiated the Long Depression in the United States and much of Europe. | |||||
| Paris Bourse crash of 1882 |  France | |||||
| Panic of 1884 | ||||||
| Encilhamento |  Brazil | Lasting 3 years, 1890–1893, a boom and bust process that boomed in late 1880s and burst on early 1890s, causing a collapse in the Brazilian economy and aggravating an already unstable political situation. | [2] [3] [4] [5] | |||
| Panic of 1893 | United States | |||||
| Panic of 1896 | United States | |||||
| Panic of 1901 | United States | Lasting 3 years, the market was spooked by the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, coupled with a severe drought later the same year. | ||||
| Panic of 1907 | United States | Lasting over a year, markets took fright after U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt had threatened to rein in the monopolies that flourished in various industrial sectors, notably railways. | ||||
| Wall Street Crash of 1929 | – | United States | Lasting over 4 years, the bursting of the speculative bubble in shares led to further selling as people who had borrowed money to buy shares had to cash them in, when their loans were called in. Also called the Great Crash or the Wall Street Crash, leading to the Great Depression. | |||
| Recession of 1937–1938 | United States | Lasting around a year, this share price fall was triggered by an economic recession within the Great Depression and doubts about the effectiveness of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policy. | ||||
| Kennedy Slide of 1962 | United States | Also known as the 'Flash Crash of 1962'. | [6] | |||
| Brazilian Markets Crash of 1971 | Brazil | Lasting through the 1970s and early-1980s, this was the end of a boom that started in 1969, compounded by the 1970s energy crisis coupled with early 1980s Latin American debt crisis. | [7] [8] [9] | |||
| 1973–1974 stock market crash | Lasting 23 months, dramatic rise in oil prices, the miners' strike and the downfall of the Heath government. | |||||
| Souk Al-Manakh stock market crash |  Kuwait | |||||
| Black Monday | United States | Infamous stock market crash that represented the greatest one-day percentage decline in U.S. stock market history, culminating in a bear market after a more than 20% plunge in the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average. Among the primary causes of the chaos were program trading and illiquidity, both of which fueled the vicious decline for the day as stocks continued lower even as volume grew lighter. Today, circuit breakers are in place to prevent a repeat of Black Monday. After a 7% drop, trading would be suspended for 15 minutes, with the same 15 minute suspension kicking in after a 13% drop. However, in the event of a 20% drop, trading would be shut down for the remainder of the day. | ||||
| Rio de Janeiro Stock Exchange Crash | Brazil | Rio de Janeiro Stock Exchange Crash, due to its weak internal controls and absence of credit discipline, that led to its collapse, and from which it never recovered. | [10] [11] [12] | |||
| Friday the 13th mini-crash | United States | Failed leveraged buyout of United Airlines causes crash. | ||||
| Early 1990s recession | United States | Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, causing oil prices to increase. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 18% in three months, from 2,911.63 on July 3 to 2,381.99 on October 16, 1990. This recession lasted approximately 8 months. | ||||
| Japanese asset price bubble |  Japan | Lasting approximately twenty years, through at least the end of 2011, share and property price bubble bursts and turns into a long deflationary recession. Some of the key economic events during the collapse of the Japanese asset price bubble include the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the dot-com bubble. In addition, more recent economic events, such as the 2007–2008 financial crisis and August 2011 stock markets fall have prolonged this period. | ||||
| Black Wednesday | The Conservative government was forced to withdraw the pound sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) after they were unable to keep sterling above its agreed lower limit. | |||||
| 1997 Asian financial crisis |  Thailand Hong Kong Philippines Indonesia | Investors deserted emerging Asian shares, including an overheated Hong Kong stock market. Crashes occur in Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, Philippines, and elsewhere, reaching a climax in the October 27, 1997 mini-crash. | ||||
| October 27, 1997, mini-crash | Global stock market crash that was caused by an economic crisis in Asia. | |||||
| 1998 Russian financial crisis | The Russian government devalues the ruble, defaults on domestic debt, and declares a moratorium on payment to foreign creditors. | |||||
| Dot-com bubble | United States | Collapse of a technology bubble. | ||||
| Economic effects of the September 11 attacks | The September 11 attacks caused global stock markets to drop sharply. The attacks themselves caused approximately $40 billion in insurance losses, making it one of the largest insured events ever. | |||||
| Stock market downturn of 2002 | Downturn in stock prices during 2002 in stock exchanges across the United States, Canada, Asia, and Europe. After recovering from lows reached following the September 11 attacks, indices slid steadily starting in March 2002, with dramatic declines in July and September leading to lows last reached in 1997 and 1998. See stock market downturn of 2002. | |||||
| Chinese stock bubble of 2007 |  China | The SSE Composite Index of the Shanghai Stock Exchange tumbles 9% from unexpected selloffs, the largest drop in 10 years, triggering major drops in worldwide stock markets. | [13] [14] [15] | |||
| United States bear market of 2007–2009 | United States | From their peaks in October 2007 until their closing lows in early March 2009, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 all suffered declines of over 50%, marking the worst stock market crash since the Great Depression era. | [16] [17] | |||
| Financial crisis of 2007–2008 | United States | On September 16, 2008, failures of large financial institutions in the United States, due primarily to exposure of securities of packaged subprime loans and credit default swaps issued to insure these loans and their issuers, rapidly devolved into a global crisis resulting in a number of bank failures in Europe and sharp reductions in the value of equities (stock) and commodities worldwide. The failure of banks in Iceland resulted in a devaluation of the Icelandic króna and threatened the government with bankruptcy. Iceland was able to secure an emergency loan from the IMF in November. Later on, U.S. President George W. Bush signs the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act into law, creating a Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to purchase failing bank assets. Had disastrous effects on the world economy along with world trade. | [18] [19] | |||
| 2009 Dubai debt standstill | Dubai requested a debt deferment following its massive renovation and development projects, as well as the Great Recession. The announcement caused global stock markets to drop. | [20] | ||||
| European sovereign debt crisis | Standard & Poor's downgraded Greece's sovereign credit rating to junk four days after the activation of a €45-billion EU–IMF bailout, triggering the decline of stock markets worldwide and of the Euro's value, and furthering a European sovereign debt crisis. | [21] [22] [23] | ||||
| 2010 flash crash | United States | The Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its worst intra-day point loss, dropping nearly 1,000 points before partially recovering. | [24] | |||
| August 2011 stock markets fall | United States | S&P 500 entered a short-lived bear market between 2 May 2011 (intraday high: 1,370.58) and 4 October 2011 (intraday low: 1,074.77), a decline of 21.58%. The stock market rebounded thereafter and ended the year flat. | [25] [26] [27] | |||
| 2015–16 Chinese stock market crash | China | The Chinese stock market crashed in June and continued falling in July and August. In January 2016, the market also experienced a steep sell-off which set off a global rout. | [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] | |||
| 2015–2016 stock market selloff | United States | The Dow Jones fell 588 points during a two-day period, 1,300 points from August 18–21. On Monday, August 24, world stock markets were down substantially, wiping out all gains made in 2015, with interlinked drops in commodities such as oil, which hit a six-year price low, copper, and most Asian currencies - with exception of the Japanese yen - losing value against the United States dollar. With this plunge, an estimated ten trillion dollars had been wiped off the books on global markets since June 3. | [34] [35] [36] | |||
| 2018 cryptocurrency crash | The S&P 500 index peaked at 2,930 on its September 20 close and dropped 19.73% to 2,351 by Christmas Eve. Bitcoin price peaked on 17 Dec '17, then fell 45% on 22nd Dec '17. The DJIA falls 18.78% during roughly the same period. Shanghai Composite dropped to a four-year low, escalating their economic downturn since the 2015 recession. | [37] [38] | ||||
| 2020 stock market crash | The S&P 500 index dropped 34%, 1145 points, at its peak of 3386 on February 19 to 2237 on March 23. This crash was part of a worldwide recession caused by the COVID-19 lockdowns. | [39] [40] [41] | ||||
| 2022 stock market decline | The S&P 500 index peaked at 4,796 on its January 3 close and dropped 27.55% to 3,498 by October 2022. The DJIA fell 18.78% since its January 4 high. Nasdaq Composite fell 33.70% from its November 19 high. | [42] [43] | ||||
| 2022 Russian stock market crash | As a reaction to the upcoming Russian invasion in Ukraine, the MOEX Index fell 43.58% in four trading days. In response, the markets were closed for a month by the Central Bank of Russia to prevent even deeper decline. After re-opening on March 24, the index partially recovered but was still down roughly 40% compared to before the invasion. | [44] | ||||
| 2024 China stock market crash | China | The Shanghai Composite Index plummeted from a high of 3703 in September 2021 to 2730 on February 2, 2024, marking a 26.3% decline ahead of the Chinese New Year. The government swiftly intervened in the stock market following the crash by prohibiting short selling and reshuffling government officials. These actions were prompted by China's sluggish economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic and a downturn in the real estate sector. | [45] | |||
| 2024 Tokyo stock market crash | Japan | A combination of rising interest rates and a strengthening yen had contributed to a recent unwinding of yen carry trades. Weaker than expected US economic figures (released after Japanese markets had closed for the weekend) led to a global selloff. Upon reopening, the Nikkei 225 recorded a single-day loss of 12.4%, its worst performance since Black Tuesday in October 1987. | [46] |