During the 1920s, the U.S. stock market underwent rapid expansion, reaching its peak in August 1929. It was called 'speculative fever'.
Then, the production had already declined and unemployment had risen, increasing the real value of stocks. Other causes of the eventual market collapse were low wages and an excess of large bank loans that could not be liquidated. Stock prices began to decline in September and early October 1929, and on October 18 the fall began. On October 24, Black Thursday, a record 12,894,650 shares were traded. Investment companies and leading bankers attempted to stabilize the market by buying up great blocks of stock. On Monday, however, the market went into fall. Black Monday was followed by Black Tuesday, in which stock prices collapsed completely and 16,410,030 shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, big companies closed and thousands of families were reduced to poverty. After October 29 1929, prices continued to drop and the United States crashed down into the Great Depression. By 1933, nearly half of American banks had failed and unemployment was approaching 15 million people.

The 2008 financial crisis was the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression of 1929.  

Despite the aggressive efforts by the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department to avoid the collapse of the U.S. banking system. It led to the Great Recession.

 That's when housing prices fell 31.8%, more than during the Depression. Two years after the end of the recession, unemployment was still above 9%. That's not counting discouraged workers who had given up looking for work.

• New York Stock Exchange (abbreviated as NYSE and nicknamed "The Big Board"), is an American stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street, Lower Manhattan, New York City and New York.
• The NYSE is owned by Intercontinental Exchange, an American holding company.
• NYSE has been the subject of several lawsuits regarding fraud or breach of duty and in 2004 was sued by its former CEO for breach of contract and defamation.

The film tells about the history of Bernard Madoff, ingenious broker of Wall Street.
Madoff was able to defraud thousands of investors thanks to a Ponzi Scheme.

In 2008 a private investigator was able to uncover the Madoff fraud, which revealed the biggest financial fraud of all time.
Later Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison, and his son committed suicide.