1997: Under orders from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, NASDAQ reduces the minimum "tick size," or trading increment, from 1/8 to 1/16 on all stocks with a bid price of $10 or more.

1987: To replace the renowned Paul Volcker as chairman of the Federal Reserve, President Reagan taps an economic consultant named Alan Greenspan. With Wall Street convinced that Greenspan will be a softie on inflation, the Dow Jones Industrial Average promptly flops down by 1% (recovering a bit by day's end) and the S&P 500 closes off 0.47%. The bond market panics outright, suffering its worst one-day percentage drop since 1979, as Treasury bonds plunge 3 1/4 points. Most analysts promptly forecast a surge in interest rates to 9% or 10%. "It's going to be very difficult to reestablish or maintain confidence in the Fed's resolve to fight inflation," warns R. Leslie Deak, chairman of American National Bank of New York. Shortly thereafter, interest rates resume dropping to modern record lows.

"Abreast of the Market" and "Credit Markets" columns, The Wall Street Journal, June 3, 1987;Robert J. Shiller, "Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to Be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?" in Richard H. Thaler, ed., Advances in Behavioral Finance (Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 1993), p. 145.

1985: R.J. Reynolds Industries Inc. takes a deep breath and gobbles up Nabisco Brands Inc. in an acquisition valued at $4.9 billion, the largest takeover yet on record outside the oil industry. RJR buys Nabisco for $85 a share — a huge premium over the $60 share price only a month earlier. William Leach, a leading food-industry analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, says the deal isn't likely to have much effect on the food industry and doubts that more mergers will follow. (Three months later, Philip Morris buys General Foods.)

The Wall Street Journal, June 3, 1985, p. 3;Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco (Harper & Row, New York, 1990), pp. 65-68.