This post is dedicated to big financial crisis and events where things went wrong quickly. “Black swans” happen infrequently in the economy, but the impact is tremendous and when people are prepared, they can make huge profits. The events are listed in chronological order. This list includes seminal events, worst investor moves (people that also went to jail) and crisis that lasted and affected millions of lives.

Financial Events Timeline

early 2023 | United States Banking Crisis

Over the course of five days in March 2023, three small-to-mid size U.S. banks failed. Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) failed when a bank run was triggered after it sold its Treasury bond portfolio at a large loss, causing depositor concerns about the bank’s liquidity. The biggest two banks that failed during that time were Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and First Republic Bank.

  • 2023 United States banking crisis
  • Wikipedia - Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)
  • Wikipedia - First Republic Bank
  • YT - Johhny Harris on SVB bank collapse
    • Reserve ration: banks only have to keep x0.1 (10%) of account holders money, the rest they can use again. Therefore, we have 10x (1/0.1) more money added to the system. Aka if you add the balances of what all people see in their banking apps (and they assume they own and can withdraw), it’s actually 10x of the money banks actually have. Similary, if everybody goes and withdraws his money from the bank at the same time, there won’t be enough of it.
    • When people freak out and they run to withdraw money, we say that “there is a run in the bank”. This leads to bankruptcy of the bank and account holders lose their money (we aslo say a “bank collapses”). To prevent this, the government intervines and gives money to “bail out the bank (sometimes using taxpayers money!!).
    • Banks essentially can take huge risks and they know that governments will bail them out. But there is an inequlity of how gains profits when things goes well vs how pays the losses when things fail. “If taxpayer money bails out a bank, the bank should become publicly owned. You can’t privatize the profits, but socialize the losses.”
    • Similar situation with banks happened in the great depression of 1930 and the 2008 financial crisis. US bailed out many of them to save the system. There are also counterexamples like Iceland, which left the banks pay in 2008.
    • Also, cool explanations on what is inflation, recession and unemployment.

2023 March | Credit Suisse Collapse

2022 November | FTX Collapse

2021 March | Archegos Capital Management Collapse (Bill Hwang)

On April 27, 2022, Hwang was indicted and arrested on federal charges of fraud and racketeering.

2021 January | GameStop short squeeze

Similar situation with AMD stock. Robinhood and Citadel conflict.

2020 April 2020 | Negative Oil Prices

In a matter of hours on April 20, the May 2020 contract futures price for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) plummeted from $18 a barrel to around -$37 a barrel.

2020 | Covid19 Pandemic (Coronavirus Crash)

TODO

2017 | CumEx Scandal

This is a relatively unknown scandal that had massive impact in European tax reserves. Essentially it’s a fraud scheme that effectively “robbed 55$ billion tax money from European citizens”.
The CumEx-Files is an investigation by a number of European news media outlets into a tax fraud scheme discovered by them in 2017.[1] A network of banks, stock traders, and lawyers had obtained billions from European treasuries through suspected fraud and speculation involving dividend taxes. The five hardest hit countries may have lost at least $62.9 billion. A great bloomberg video about CumEx.

2015 - 2016 | Stock Market Selloff

The market volatility initially began in China as investors were sold shares globally amid a slew of tumultuous economic circumstances, including the end of quantitative easing in the U.S., a fall in petroleum prices, the Greek debt default, and the Brexit vote.

2012 August | Knight Capital Group Losses and Acquisition

The Knight Capital Group was an American global financial services firm engaging in market making, electronic execution, and institutional sales and trading. With its high-frequency trading algorithms Knight was the largest trader in U.S. equities, with a market share of 17.3% on NYSE and 16.9% on NASDAQ. The company agreed to be acquired by Getco LLC in December 2012 after an August 2012 trading error lost $460 million. The merger was completed in July 2013, forming KCG Holdings.

2012 April and May | JPMorgan Chase trading loss (Bruno Iksil - London Whale)

September 2011 | UBS rogue trader scandal (Kweku Adoboli - Rogue Trader)

2011 August 8 | Debt Ceiling Crisis and Black Monday

In finance and investing, Black Monday 2011 refers to August 8, 2011, when US and global stock markets following the Friday night credit rating downgrade by Standard and Poor’s of the United States sovereign debt from AAA, or “risk free”, to AA+. U.S. President Barack Obama attempted to calm the markets during trading in a speech from the White House, but the DOW lost 200 more points within 20 minutes of it concluding.

2010 May 6 | Flash Crash

Also known as the crash of 2:45 which started at 2:32 p.m. EDT and lasted for approximately 36 minutes

2008 | Société Générale trading loss (Jérôme Kerviel - Rogue Trader)

2008 | United States housing bubble and Financial Crisis

2000 March | Dotcom bubble

1999 | The Wolf of Wall Street (Jordan Belfort)

Mostly popular for his scam because of the Martin Scorsese film.

1998 September 23 | Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) Collapse And Bailout

1998 | Russian Financial Crisis

1997 | The Asian Crisis

1996 June 13 | Sumitomo copper affair (Yasuo Hamanaka - Rogue Trader)

The Sumitomo copper affair refers to a metal trading scandal in 1996 involving Yasuo Hamanaka, the chief copper trader of the Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corporation (Sumitomo). The scandal involves unauthorized trading over a 10-year period by Hamanaka, which led Sumitomo to announce US$1.8 billion in related losses in 1996 when Hamanaka’s trading was discovered, and more related losses subsequently. On June 13, 1996, Sumitomo Corporation reported a loss of US$1.8 billion in unauthorized copper trading by Hamanaka on the London Metal Exchange. His culpability as to whether this responsibility was authorized is in doubt.

1995 January 16 | Barrings Bank Collapse (Nick Leeson - Rogue Trader)

Nicholas William Leeson is an English former derivatives trader whose fraudulent, unauthorised and speculative trades resulted in the 1995 collapse of Barings Bank, the United Kingdom’s second oldest merchant bank. He was convicted of financial crime in a Singapore court and served over four years in Changi Prison.

1992 September 16 | Black Wednesday of UK

A collapse in the value of the pound sterling forced Britain to withdraw from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). It’s popularly known as “the day when George Soros broke the Bank of England”.

1989 October 13 | Friday 13th

1987 October 19 | Black Monday of US

Black Monday (also known as Black Tuesday in some parts of the world due to time zone differences) was the global, severe and largely unexpected stock market crash of that date.

1980 March 27 | Siver Thursday (Hunt Brothers)

Silver Thursday was an event that occurred in the United States silver commodity markets, following the attempt by brothers Nelson Bunker Hunt, William Herbert Hunt and Lamar Hunt (collectively known as the Hunt Brothers) to corner the silver market. A subsequent steep fall in silver prices led to panic on commodity and futures exchanges.

1974 October 8 | Franklin National Bank Collapse (Michele Sindona)

It collapsed in obscure circumstances involving Michele Sindona, who was a renowned Mafia-banker and member of the irregular freemasonic lodge Propaganda Due.

1974 June 26 | Herstatt Bank Bankrupcy

Herstatt’s failure specifically highlighted the importance of settlement risk in foreign-exchange markets.

1973-74 | The OPEC Oil Price Shock (Bear Market)

The result was an economic phenomenon that still puzzles researchers, namely stagflation: the combination of high inflation (reaching 12%) and economic stagnation.

1971 August 5| Nixon Shock and cancellation of gold standard

unilateral cancellation of the direct international convertibility of the United States dollar to gold.

1929 October | The Great Crash and the Great Depression

It is most associated with October 24, 1929, known as “Black Thursday”, when a record 12.9 million shares were traded on the NYSE in a single day (as compared to an average of four million), and October 29, 1929, known as “Black Tuesday”, when about 16.4 million shares were traded.

1907 | Bankers’ Panic (Knickerbocker Crisis)

1772-1773 | British credit crisis of 1772–1773

TODO

1637 February | Tulipmania

more resources and stories

To check: