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Article: Market crashes:.(Business Report)
- Article from:
- The Star (South Africa)
- Article date:
- January 23, 2008
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Independent News & Media PLC. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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A stock market crash is a sudden and precipitous decline in the prices of shares which affects a whole market or series of markets. There is no precise definition, either in terms of the size of a decline that qualifies as a crash, or the period over which the fall occurs, which can be a matter of days or weeks.
A key characteristic of a crash is the snowball or panic effect, in which investors all rush to sell at the same time, creating a dynamic that drives prices even further. The most dramatic crashes over the past century have been those of 1929 and 1987. In October to November 1929, the New York stock market, the world's biggest, lost almost half its value. ...