High. But it wasnt easy. It had to erase an early 100point slide to extend its record setting run. Just yesterday, the index finished above 23,000 for the first time ever. Apple was the days early sandbag on reports of weak demand for its new iphone 8. Goldman sachs and boeing didnt help much either. But a late day rally fueled in part by verizon well have more on that in a moment helped the blue chip index eke out a gain. The dow rose five points to 23,163, an alltime high. Nasdaq dropped 19. The s p 500 rose a fraction. Todays market move was nothing like the one that occurred 30 years ago. October 19th, 1987, black monday. The worst oneday stock plunge in history. That day ended with the dow down 508 points, about 23 , to a Closing Price of 1738. The selling was monumental. The decline nervewracking. Nightly Business Report paul canning was there to give views a rundown. Reporter prices on the new York Exchange continued to plunge today in an extension of fridays record loss, down to the 2246 level. The opening selloff was massive as the dow plummeted with 1600 stocks down, with 70 moving higher. What was the cause . Our frequent market monitor jim stack, who was worried about the bull market on his last visit with us on june 5th, told me one of the major factors if not the major factor was forced mutual fund redemptions. After that, snowballing portfolio insurers, and the industrial tumbled by 2 00 p. M. With only 50s up, 1850 down. With no hint of any technical meaningful rebound, stocks continued to plunge throughout the afternoon with the dow off 296 points at the 1950 level at 3 00 p. M. The final hour saw the bottom drop out as liquidations combined with those wonderfully innovative strategies, the dow plunged to a record loss putting it at a record percentage loss of 22. 5 . That was paul kangas. A similar 23 drop today would sink the dow by 5,000 points. Thats as much as its gained in the last 18 months, one of the great market rallies of all time. Why did stocks drop so hard on this day 30 years ago . Bob pisani takes a look. Reporter it is a day that will be in bold print in history books. Reporter could it happen again . President reagan appointed the Brady Commission to investigate the causes of crash. There were several fundamental causes, including a stock market run going into it, the use of portfolio insurance, the commission focused on the inability of Trading Systems to handle all the sellers who came through the system. The system couldnt handle it. Traders couldnt answer the phone. Lack of information created more selling. Systemwide Circuit Breakers were instituted in 1989 and later expanded to single stock Circuit Breakers. More importantly, the crisis accelerated the move toward electronic trading, which led to a deep reviewest markets. The exchanges expanded their capacity to handle volume. Could it happen again . Sure, the markets could have a big drop. But its unlikely to happen for the same reason, like an inability of the market to handle the order volume. No one has repealed the law of gravity. When a lot of people are looking to sell fast, the market will drop. For nightly Business Report, im bob w lets turn to our friend michael farr for more on black monday. The similarities to todays stock market and the lessons weve learned from that day. Michael, great to see you as always. Where were you on that day . What do you remember about it . Thank you, tyler. I was sitting at my desk. My hair was a lot darker then. I was sitting at my desk, i was a new stockbroker. It was overwhelming. And what i remember was the calls coming in and the clients and the customers asking what was going on. And we didnt have any answer. The other thing that happened, those were the days when you wrote handwritten tickets and you would send them down by wire to the floor of the stock exchange. We werent getting confirmations back. So we didnt have information to give the clients. It was a tough day. That was a great clip of paul kang gchl kangas, he was a good friend. That was something special. He sure was. He cited the contribution of computerized trading as one of the reasons that the market got a little sideways on that day, to put it mildly. But since then all we have is more computerized trading. Is that a good thing or does it potentiate another day like october 19th, 1987 . Thats a great question. We saw a couple of years ago the flash crash, we were down over a thousand point ins in a few minutes. There were all these excuses, was it somebodys fat finger on a computer keyboard. We dont know. With the High Frequency trading, our friends on the floor will tell you that continues to be a concern. Circuit breakers are in place to keep control and orderly trading. A lot of people have been asking the question today, could it happen again. And when im asked that question, michael, i say, yeah, it probably could happen again, but it wont happen the same way, it wont happen for the same reasons. And i think thats exactly the right point. Were going to get you know, if youre going to get bit in the neck for one of these crash days, and the programs really pile on, its going to be something unforeseen. Weve corrected a lot of the problems of the past. Weve put in safeguards. It will be what we havent seen yet. Yeah, it could happen. What we have to also remember, though, tyler, is that markets are making alle highs. When theyre making all time highs, you have to remember, its a buy low, sell high rule, and you have to be cautious. And the market at that time at one point during 1987, if my history is correct, had been up Something Like 40 over the preceding year, and then the slide began in late august and crescendoed on that day. So we could see even with those Circuit Breakers, a cascading slide in the market, couldnt we . Certainly we could. It would be one of those things perhaps we havent seen before. There are a lot of differences, though. One of the differences i think is that the bond market really started to crack in august. And when the bond market really started to climb, stocks continued to hold up. People were scratching their heads. The bond market has always been seen as smarter than the stock market. And it was a capitulation of the stock market. But bond markets been holding great. Interest rates are still very low. Theres a lot of money. You know, the fed is tightening. We just have to watch them closely. Thank you, michael. Michael farr. Verizon unexpectedly brought back unlimited wireless plans earlier this year. The move may be paying off. The Company Reported better than expected revenue and earnings in line with estimates, that sent shares of the dow higher in trading today, as we noted earlier. Julia boorstin has more on reporter verizon is doing something not all of its competitors can. Its gaining subscribers. Nearly 600,000 of them in the quarter. And almost half of them are mobile phone subscribers. This after bringing back its unlimited wireless plans for the First Time Since 2011. Rumors of verizons death are exaggerated. Dont count these guys out, despite tmobiles ads and what sprint might be telling you, very solid numbers across the board especially on wireless which is their bread and butter. Reporter but verizons fios tv lost 18,000 subscribers, more than the last two quarters. The company blaming an industrywide shift from traditional linear video to over the top video offerings. Its an increasingly crowded space with options from youtube tv to hulus streaming bundle to at ts directv now. With at t focusing on content, its acquisition of time warner pending, theres growing focus on what verizon might do next in the content space. After ceo local mcadam said the company would announce a content partnership by the end of last month. This is a space where we think theres an opportunity for to us play, we think it makes sense for us to play in that space. We dont want to launch a metoo type product. Were continuing to look at what makes sense to launch something thats differentiated in that space, probably around live programming. Reporter verizon has been focused on its oath unit, which has evolved from aol. Well see if there other acquisitions in the works. Im Julia Boorstin in lodg for nightly Business Report mor br it wasal reporter in a quarter adopted by catastrophes, travelers has good news to share, a big earnings beat. The insurance giant reported adjusted earnings that were more than double what wall street analysts were expecting. Even as a historic Hurricane Season racked up 700 million in pretax catastrophe losses. Those Company Losses due largely to hurricanes harvey, irma, and maria, were seven times higher than a year ago. Travelers is bracing for more in this quarter, thanks to Deadly Wildfires in california. Travelers ceo said it will now seek renewal price increases for some policies the company offers. Big eve pricing when a material amount of industry surplus is eroded or when the events change the markets view of risk. Its hard not to make the argument that weve experienced both. Reporter stronger pricing could fuel stronger results for the industryoverall. Some analysts remain skeptical. When theres storms like we had in the third quarter, theres expectation from some investors that theyre going to be see better or firmer pricing. Travelers was initially optimistic that theyll see that in some of their select markets. Well see what happens. I think these storms were significant losses but probably not enough to turn industry pricing. Thats one of the reasons why broadly were neutral. Reporter the quarter marked its largest appointment of drones yet as the entire industry ramps up adoption of the new technology. More than a thousand inspections were done with drones. Travelers expects to have 650 them in use by next year. For nightly Business Report, morgan just reported, of course, that travelers is bracing for more losses this quarter because of those deadly california wildfires. And late today, the states insurance commissioner said its preliminary estimate for losses now exceeds a billion dollars. That number is expected to rise. Still ahead, why some senators want new regulations for some of the countrys biggest intern the number of americans collecting Unemployment Benefits fell last week to a 44year low. That would be when Richard Nixon was president. Jobless claims dropped 22,000 to 222,000, suggesting employers are confident enough in the economy to hold on to workers. The overall Unemployment Rate right now, 4. 2 . That is a 16year low. President trump today met with fed chair janet yellen as he considers who will take over her role at the national bank. She was the fifth person to talk with the president about the position. Her term expires in february. Others up for the job are gary cohn, kevin warsh, and Stanford University economist john taylor. Also in washington, online Media Companies are facing the threat of new regulation over political ads. It is the first major attempt to regulate Companies Like facebook, twitter, google, to make them comply with the same laws that govern political ads on tv, radio, and in print. Kayla tausche has the details. Reporter the u. S. Intelligence Community Found evidence russiabacked agents used social media platforms, facebook, google, twitter, in an attempt to influence the 2016 president ial race. Virginia senator margin wak war says the facebook ads traced to russia is just the beginning. I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg. These are the ads that were paid for in rubles. Weve not been able to sort through whether some of these same accounts may have been smart enough to use dollars, euros or pounds to pay for ads. There may be more. Reporter with some 220 million users in the u. S. , facebook reaches nearly ten times the subscribers of the Largest Cable Company at 22 million. The proposed law would apply to sites with 50 million or more users, requiring them to keep a public file of all political ads purchased by campaigns spending more than 500. Lawmakers want the same disclosure for online firms as existing for traditional media. Its really putting us on par with where broadcast and radio are today. Reporter the industry says it will continue to work toward a legislative solution. Social media executives have met with lawmakers in recent weeks as congress investigates Russian Election interference. Facebook is hiring thousands to combat the issue. But new rules could eat into these companies p theyve made their money based on the fact theyve been in this unregulated wild west. Reporter the legislation has the support of republican senator john mccain who chairs the senates Armed Services committee. He views russias interference as a National Security issue. Still, some gop lawmaker chafe at any regulation they say could infringe on free speech. Im Kayla Tausche for nightly business repor in washington. Gilead wins approval for its cancer treatment. The fda approved Gilead Sciences potentially revolutionary therapy for a type of lymphoma. The treatment uses a patients own immune cells to attack the disease and has only been approved once before to fight cancer. The list price, just under 400,000 for a onetime dose. Gileads shares rose nearly 2 to 81. 59. Philip morris posted disappointing earnings and revenue. The tobacco giant reported a tenth straight quarter of cigarette declines. The trend is expected to continue. Philip morris expanding its focus to potentially safer alternatives to tobacco cigarettes. Shares tumbled 4 to 108. 15. The platform mongodb debuted on the platform today, giving the company a valuation of more than a billion. The company says it is still wellpositioned for more were obviously very pleased by how investors reacted to the story. Its not even about today. Its about the future. Were going after one of the largest markets in enterprise software. The second thing is we have a very disruptive technology. Third, the momentum of the business is really strong. Weve got customers across every industry using us for every conceivable use case. This is just a start. The best is yet to come. Mongodb took off, rising 33 to 32. 07. And after the bell, paypal reported profit and sales that rose more than expected as more users made payments on the companys venmo platform. Paypal also raised its full year guidance shares initially higher in extended hours. They ended the regular session a penny lower, at 67. 27. Shares of celgene were pressured in the extended session after the pharmaceutical firm said it wont continue a study trial for its Crohns Disease treatment. The company said it made the decision after an independent Data Monitoring Committee determined that the treatment benefit did not sufficiently outweigh the risk. Shares initially fell after the announcement and also ended the regular day down nearly 1 at 135. 96. General motors has agreed to pay 120 million to resolve claims from 49 states and the district of columbia over faulty ignition switches. The defect has been linked to 124 deaths and 275 injuries, and prompted a massive recall, as you may remember, in early 2014. Largest u. S. Based automakers paid 2. 5 billion in penalties and settlements over defective switches that could cause engines to stall and prevent airbags from deploying. Heres something that may not come as a surprise for those of you who have bought a new car or truck recently. The latest technology being rolled into these models is prone to glitches and bugs. Thats the conclusion of a new survey by Consumer Reports detailing the most and least reliable auto brands. Phil lebea. Reporter new cars and trucks with the latest bells and whistles may look good in the showroom, but out on the road, theyre hitting the wrong note with many owners. Consumer reports surveyed more than 600,000 people. It found many are frustrated by glitches in their vehicle infotainment systems as well as the new transmissions being built into the latest models. What stands out is whats going wrong with todays vehicles. Its the new technology, thats been the problem. This year Consumer Reports calls toyota the most reliable brand just ahead of lexus and kia which cracks the top three for the first time. By comparison, ram, gmc, and cadillac are ranked as the worst in reliability. Also near the bottom, tesla, which has just rolled out a new lower priced electric car, the model 3. Consumer reports has yet to drive the model 3, but predicts it will have average reliability. Lets be very clear. Were not giving it super high marks. Were basically its par for the course, not below the average, not going to be above average. Its going to be average. Reporter tesla blasted that prediction as absurd, saying Consumer Reports automotive reporting is consistently inaccurate and misleading to consumers. Tesla says Consumer Reports has not driven the model 3 so it shouldnt be predicting its reliability. For its part, Consumer Reports says it knows enough about tesla to predict how the model 3 will hold up over time. As model 3 deliveries increase, tesla buyers will eventually determine if Consumer Reports prediction is accurate. Phil lebeau, ni. Automakers are making strides in passenger safety. New crash tests from the ine institute for Highway Safety show ten of the 13 midsize cars tested were graded as doing a good job in protecting passengers, good is the highest grade. Those not receiving a grade of good, the Volkswagen Jetta was acceptable. The chevy mali