I was a trainee at the late, great Bear Stearns, executing FX trades for the firm’s clearing accounts. After the markets finally closed after falling 22%, everyone with a pulse was rounded up and sent to the margin department. Ring the number one and hang up, were the instructions, if I recall correctly.
I spent several summers during college working as a clerk on the NYSE, so when the QT (questioned trade) department was overwhelmed by out trades, I was sent to the floor to lend a hand since I knew my way around the building. My first act was to walk into the QT room, which looked like a war zone. There, I promptly knocked over someone’s food order which was perched on a stool all over a clerk who had probably not slept in 48 hours. Smooth as ever.
The fallout from that day was long-lasting. Hiring on Wall Street ground to a halt. Home prices in metro New York plunged. Scary days indeed, not to be repeated for another 20-odd years when Lehman bit the dust.
