The 39th anniversary of Black Monday, Wall Street’s worst single-day crash that took place on October 19, 1987, has come, and it’s a perfect opportunity to reflect on how the market has moved in nearly four decades since the calamity.
For instance, how much would a $1,000 invested after the Black Monday crash be worth today? To get a simple answer, we can take a look at how the S&P 500 has performed over the past 39 years.
How much would $1,000 invested in the S&P 500 after Black Monday crash be worth now?
On Black Monday, the S&P 500 fell 20.47% in a day, to 224.84, as global losses climbed to around $1.71 trillion. To put things into perspective, the index sits at 7.659,44 at press time, meaning a comparable crash would shave over 1,568.08 points off its value.
However, the comparison also shows that those who invested $1,000 after the Black Monday crash have seen their investment grow by approximately 3,306%, to a value of around $34,000 today.
Note, though, that the calculated returns assume no dividends were reinvested. Naturally, reinvesting all the dividends would have generated substantially higher returns, likely even doubling them, depending on how the average yield in the months after the crash is caclculated.
What about Dow Jones?
Compared to the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had it much worse, crashing 22.6% to 1,738.74, losing $500 billion in the process. Again, a similar crash today would erase 11,752.45 points from the index, which is valued at 52,002.41points at the time of writing.
A $1,000 investment in the Dow Jones index at Black Monday would therefore be worth approximately $29,908.90 today, representing a gain of 2,890.89%.
Once again, though, the figure does not take into account dividend reinvestments, which would have led to further profits over the years, as is the case with the S&P 500.
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