05 August 2022

Crash of 2008 In One Picture

 

"There are recurring cycles, ups and downs, but the course of events is essentially the same, with small variations. It has been said that history repeats itself. This is perhaps not quite correct; it merely rhymes."

Theodor Reik, The Unreachables, 1965


History never repeats itself, but the Kaleidoscopic combinations of the pictured present often seem to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legends."

Mark Twain, The Gilded Age, 1874


“History does not repeat itself. The historians repeat one another.”

Max Beerbohm, 1896


I have included the CrashTrak plot in the aftermath but originally I was posting it when the signal was given in June 2008.

I have stopped including 1987 in the historical reference because although it fits the pattern it was in fact a hellacious flash crash noted for it brief intensity, quickly addressed with a flood of liquidity by Alan Greenspan.