Recalling 1987

Yesterday's correction made me think about the 1987 crash especially after I tried to convey the sense of radical shock to my college-age daughter.  I'm not sure I communicated it well so I came back to look at it here.  I told her that I was in graduate school at the time and that we all stood in front of TVs more or less slack-jawed and agog at the "market chart line" that was not just straight down but relentlessly going further down every minute, every hour, every day.  I had a friend that had been in the workforce for a while and had accumulated a decent pile of retirement savings.  He turned to me and said at one point after a couple days (2 days?!) "I think I just lost half of everything I ever saved." Me? I had only pennies to my name so all of this was more or less abstract to me but I could feel the fear emanating from those around me.  On the other hand it all turned out ok so I guess that was the real lesson rather than "the world was ending" or as a trading mentor later told me in 2009 "the American economy is NOT going out of business" which is why I feel like I can afford to be a little blasé about these assertive moves that come and go over the years.  

Just for fun, though, and I don't think I got the scale right, but this is what it looked like, 1987 on the left, 2016 on the right.