WALL STREET: Black Monday

The swift rise of the 1955 bull market was based on one big premise: President Eisenhower would be elected for a second term in 1956 and the U.S. economic boom would continue, unhindered by any political changes. As the news of Ike's heart attack shattered that confidence, the stock market suffered its worst fall in 26 years. For Wall Streeters the weekend announcement could not have come at a worse time, for the first impulse of thousands upon thousands of small stockholders was to sell. As the selling orders poured in by wire on Sunday to brokerage houses, the...

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