What is black Thursday

October 24, 1929. On this date, a then-record number of shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange by panicked investors, marking the onset of the stock market crash that precipitated the Great Depression.

Black Thursday refers to October 24, 1929, when panicked sellers traded nearly 13 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange (more than three times the normal volume at the time), and investors suffered $5 billion in losses.

Black Thursday began the Wall Street crash of 1929, which lasted until October 29, 1929. Many investors had borrowed or leveraged heavily to buy stocks, and the crash on Black Thursday wiped them out financially-leading to widespread bank failures.