Black Friday
1. A day of stock market catastrophe. Originally, Sept 24, 1869 was deemed Black Friday. The crash was sparked by gold speculators, including Jay Gould and James Fist, who attempted to corner the gold market. The attempt failed and the gold market collapsed, causing the stock market to plummet.
2. The day after Thanksgiving in the United States. Retailers generally see an upward spike in sales and consider this to be the start of the holiday shopping season. It's common for retailers to offer special promotions and to open early to draw in customers.
Investopedia Commentary
1. The term "black" has been used to describe other disastrous days in financial markets. For example, on Tuesday, Oct 29, 1929, the market fell precipitously that day has been coined Black Tuesday, signaling the start of the Great Depression. Additionally, the largest one-day drop in stock market history occurred on Black Monday, Oct 19, 1987, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted more than 22%.
2. The idea behind the term is that Black Friday is a day in which retail stores have enough sales to put them "in the black" - an accounting expression alluding to the practice of recording losses in red and profits in black.
Related Links
The Greatest Market Crashes
How Investors Often Cause The Market's Problems
See also: Black, Black Monday, Circuit Breaker, Crash, Cyber Monday, Dow Jones Industrial Average - DJIA, New York Stock Exchange - NYSE, Panic Selling, Take A Bath, Trading Halt
Black Friday
Black Friday
Also A day of economic catastrophe, as in We feared there'd be another Black Friday. This usage dates from September 24, 1869, a Friday when stock manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk tried to corner the gold market and caused its collapse. The adjective black has been appended to similar occasions ever since, including October 29, 1929, the Tuesday of the market collapse that marked the start of the Great Depression, and Black Monday of October 19, 1987, when the stock market experienced its greatest fall since the Great Depression.
Any day marked by great confusion or activity, as in It was just my luck to be traveling on Black Tuesday. This usage, too, is based on the events of 1869, marked by economic chaos. It has since been extended to other kinds of confusion, such as an accident hampering traffic during the evening rush hour.