The US Stock Market As of February 24, 1997 the United States stock market has seen only two major crashes since the first seat on the New York Stock exchange was sold in 1850. Both the 1929 and the 1987 crashes turned the Dow Jones Industrial Average downward by almost 23% each. On the other hand, this market has witnessed many corrections along the way. A stock market correction is usually referred to as a downward movement of stock prices (measured by the indices) anywhere from a few percentage points to twenty percent; whereas, a market crash, therefore, would be any stock price decline greater than that. Note that the percentage changes assigned to these terms are not text book de