Isn't it just a teensy bit scary that values of shares can be hammered and money lost on the slip of a finger?Plunge in US equities remains a mystery
By Michael Mackenzie and Henny Sender in New York
Published: May 7 2010 18:49 | Last updated: May 7 2010 20:01
The day after $1,000bn was briefly wiped off the market value of US equities, traders were still trying to work out what caused share prices to plunge and then rebound so dramatically in a matter of minutes.
The conventional wisdom held that an incorrectly typed sell order – one that confused “billions” for “millions”, for example – was the likely culprit.
“The trigger for the sell-off was most likely some kind of errant order, a fat-finger typo, which set off a chain reaction of selling,” said Sang Lee, managing principal at Aite Group. “I would be shocked if that was not the case as the fall in stocks was so sudden and extreme.”
However, despite the persistence of this story, officials were struggling to idenfity a specific cause. “We still don’t know what was the initiating signal for the trading activity we saw on Thursday,” said Jeff Wecker, chief executive officer at Lime Brokerage. “The verdict is still out.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8f6fbb7e-59ff ... ab49a.html
Ok, who lost the billions
Ok, who lost the billions
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Ok, who lost the billions
This kind of nonsense happens all of the time.
The real problem is that we have allowed idiots and boneheads to buy and sell stocks. As a result only idiots and boneheads have any idea what happened and would you trust the boneheaded drivel that spews out from these idiots?
Very few businesses change in true value with such speed. To imagine that so many went so far south so quickly is ludicrous. Only an idiot or a bonehead could believe such a transformation to be real.
And they did.
The real problem is that we have allowed idiots and boneheads to buy and sell stocks. As a result only idiots and boneheads have any idea what happened and would you trust the boneheaded drivel that spews out from these idiots?
Very few businesses change in true value with such speed. To imagine that so many went so far south so quickly is ludicrous. Only an idiot or a bonehead could believe such a transformation to be real.
And they did.
A sufficiently copious dose of bombast drenched in verbose writing is lethal to the truth.