{"id":1344,"date":"2026-06-11T10:35:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T10:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futurestechs.co.uk\/news\/?p=1344"},"modified":"2026-06-11T10:36:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T10:36:00","slug":"historytechs-recounting-memories-of-black-monday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futurestechs.co.uk\/news\/2026\/06\/11\/historytechs-recounting-memories-of-black-monday\/","title":{"rendered":"HistoryTechs – Recounting memories of Black Monday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Monday October 19th<\/sup> 1987 – Black Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a big storm on a Thursday night and very few people made it into work the next day. On that day the Dow crashed late on but it wasn\u2019t until the Monday that anyone in London could react.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black Monday was carnage. We were totally inundated with orders from the moment we got in, many getting in late due to trains being fucked by the storm. I remember looking around at this room full of people that had never even seen a bear market. They looked shell-shocked. \u201cNightmare on Old Broad Street\u201d as Dave Lee-Williams said (how do I remember all these names?!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once again, my relative new-ness to the game and the naivety that went with it meant I thought it was bloody fantastic! We were so busy\u2026  The prices on the screens were totally out of kilter with the prices being quoted if\/when we got through to anyone willing to pick up the phone. But if you got a quote you dealt, pretty much\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day continued in the same vein and I was sent up to Smith New Court\u2019s offices, to be the other end of an open line so James Capel could execute orders with the \u201csmall orders\u201d desk there. The \u201cSmiths Small Orders Desk\u201d: Now this lot were basically a bunch of hooligans. In a good way. I spent the whole day up there before, once the market had closed, they gaffer-taped me to a chair and stuck me in the lift for a ride! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Wikipedia: \u201cStocks then continued to fall, albeit at a less precipitous rate, until reaching a trough in mid-November at 36 percent below its pre-crash peak. Stocks did not begin to recover until 1989\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And of course we\u2019ve seen \u201ccrashes\u201d since, but none with the swiftness of this particular occasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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