A model of asset price dynamics is derived in which large jumps in
stock prices are determined endogenously. An important property of
the model is that it can lead to
asset price distributions that are
multimodal. The model can explain how relatively
small changes in
dividends can lead to relatively large changes in asset prices and it can
be used to identify the time period in which bubbles begin and
end. The framework is applied to modeling the U.S. stock market crash
in October 1987. Some forecasting experiments also are conducted with
the result that the model is able to predict the
size of the eventual
crash in the aggregate stock price.