Marlboro Friday
Categories: Education
You had a hard week in 1985. Madonna's latest single was a disappointment, and your Apple IIe is on the fritz. Smoke ‘me if you got ‘em. Marlboro Friday.
Actually, Marlboro Friday is a stock market thing. You’ve heard of Black Monday (the stock market crash of 1987) and Black Tuesday (the stock market crash of 1929). Well, Marlboro Friday is a version of that, only on a very limited scale (maybe we should request a name change to "Black Lung Friday").
Marlboro Friday took place on Friday, April 2, 1993. That day, tobacco giant Philip Morris announced that it would significantly cut prices of its Marlboro cigarette brand. The company wanted to compete better against generic rivals (like the Cowboy Man brand or Mustache Guy Rides a Horse brand). So the firm slashed retail prices...a move Wall Street absolutely hated. Shares of the company dropped 26% on the session, marking a market cap loss on the day of about $10 billion.