The Crash, One Year Later : It Was the Worst of Times

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OOPS! BAD TIME TO GO OUT ON A LIMB. Robert Holmes a Court, 51, Australia's first billionaire, was heading for a fall last year when he bought huge blocks of stock, including a 10% stake in Texaco. The crash cut his personal fortune from an estimated $1.1 billion in mid-1987 to $400 million now. Lately, instead of stalking giant corporations on several continents, the Perth-based investor has been making far more modest acquisitions, such as sheep ranches, land for an industrial park and paintings for his private collection.

BUY A HOUSE FOR HALF A MILLION AND GET A GARAGE-DOOR EAGLE FOR FREE. While sales of many luxury goods have remained strong, the market has gone notably soft in some metropolitan areas for houses in the $400,000-to-$600,000 price range. Those were the yuppie domiciles that brokers, traders and investment bankers in their thirtysomethings could well afford during bull-market days. Prices have not fallen drastically yet, but hardly anyone is buying, especially in Wall Street's primary bedroom, Connecticut, and favorite resort, Long Island's Hamptons.

WILL THE LAST PERSON TO LEAVE THE PITS PLEASE TURN OUT THE LIGHTS? Trading volume at the Chicago Board Options Exchange has plunged 43% in the first eight months of 1988, compared with the same period the previous year. During the bull market, the exchange had boomed partly because stock investors had hedged their Wall Street bets by buying options contracts. But now business is so slow that 150 of the exchange's 1,200 employees have been given severance packages. One of the most renowned traders on the exchange, Jack Keller, 45, has moved his family back to Las Vegas and temporarily resumed his previous career as a professional poker player. "If the market picks up, I'll go back," says Keller. "But very few people are making money down at the exchange, from what I hear. I just hear moaning and groaning."