Where you were on Black Monday

From Twitter user @jghellum: I was a UW-Madison student. The scheduled lecture topic was the 1929 crash. Prof: “an uncomfortable coincidence…”

From Advisor.ca user James Britton: I remember calling [my dealer] and associates and desperately asking how to deal with the day and my clients. As a young rep it was great having my firm coach me, as the clients needed the reassurance that this has happened before and will happen again. This wasn’t available from any news channel or from most representatives.

From Advisor.ca user GERRYP.MCPEAKE.7: I was in my last year of high school, in economics class — perfect timing. Fortunately, my $126 was invested in a bank account and not the stock market!

From Calgary advisor Patti B. Dolan: I was working at Merrill Lynch in Calgary as a bookkeeper and had just completed my CSC.

The Calgary office was the regional operations centre, so we spent the following day frantically sending out margin and cash calls. In the midst of the chaos, our branch manager Roy Brooks came into the office, gathered the employees and gave us a reassuring speech.

The part that I remember is, “Ladies and gentlemen, you are working through history.” He took a terrible situation and put it into perspective.

From Vancouver advisor John Lunam: I was travelling in Japan, because business was booming for securities firms here in Canada and nobody had time for new recruits. (Six months later they all had lots of time for me!) I remember listening to the U.S. market crash on Armed Forces Radio. My trip the next day to the Tokyo Stock Exchange was like a visit to a morgue! In 1987, Japan ruled. How the mighty have fallen since those heady days.