Trading Dropped over 40% during the OJ Simpson Trial Verdict

If you weren't present for the O.J. Simpson trial, it's difficult to appreciate just how significant it was now. Although you may read about it, there's no substitute for really experiencing it to fully grasp how it seemed to control the media and popular culture for months. In hindsight, it doesn't even make sense because O. J. Simpson, whose professional football career had ended more than 15 years ago and who had only appeared in a few B movies and the Naked Gun series, was hardly well-known at the time.

Nevertheless, the trial turned into the traditional media circus, with estimates of the number of people who watched the decision being read on TV reaching as high as 150 million. At the time, trading on the stock exchange decreased by 41%. Unfathomable forecasts made prior to the trial suggested that unprecedented numbers of people would miss work to watch, destroying overall productivity, in addition to declines in housing and increases in unemployment, all of which were associated with the study. It was expected that traders would put their jobs on hold to observe what transpired as the stock market crashed.