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“Just last Tuesday afternoon, for example, Working Group officials gathered in a conference room at the Treasury Building. They discussed, among other topics, the risks of a stock market decline in the wake of the Dow’s sudden surge past 7000, according to sources familiar with the meeting. The officials pondered whether prices in the stock market reflect a greater appetite for risk-taking by investors. Some expressed concern that the higher the stock market goes, the closer it could be to a correction, according to the sources.”
The red book is intended to make sure that no matter what the time of day, SEC officials can reach their opposite numbers at other agencies of the U.S. government, with foreign governments, at the various stock, bond and commodity futures and options exchanges, as well as executives of the many payment and settlement systems underlying the financial markets.
“We all have everybody’s home and weekend numbers,” said a former Working Group staff member.
The Working Group’s main goal, officials say, would be to keep the markets operating in the event of a sudden, stomach-churning plunge in stock prices — and to prevent a panicky run on banks, brokerage firms and mutual funds. Officials worry that if investors all tried to head for the exit at the same time, there wouldn’t be enough room — or in financial terms, liquidity — for them all to get through. In that event, the smoothly running global financial machine would begin to lock up.
The Fed’s reaction to the 1987 market slide, which Corrigan helped oversee, is a case study in how to do it right. The Fed kept the markets going by flooding the banking system with reserves and stating publicly that it was ready to extend loans to important financial institutions, if needed.
The Fed’s actions in October 1987 read like a financial war story.
The morning after the 508-point drop on Black Monday,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/blackm/plunge.htm
