Black Monday on stock markets throughout the world - a new phenomenon of collective panic disorder? A psychiatric approach.

Drastic losses on the stock markets within short periods have been the subject of numerous investigations in view of the fact that they are often irrational. Stock exchanges around the world suffered dramatic losses on Monday 21 January 2008, and again recently on Monday 17 March 2008. Regardless of cultural affiliation, public reporting of the global collapse in stock prices on Monday was striking in its almost unified mood of panic, anxiety and general fear of further partially arbitrary trading losses. These partly irrational mechanisms of an international financial crisis seem to fulfil several criteria of typical panic disorders according to classification systems like ICD-10 or DSM-IV. The new phenomenon affects international stock markets in the sense of a global panic disorder (GPD).